The 36th Graham Hovey Lecture: Freedom of Information and the Public’s Right to Know

This article appeared in the Fall 2023 issue of the Wallace House Journal.

Q&A with Anna Clark of ProPublica

The annual Graham Hovey Lecture was started by Charles Eisendrath in 1987 in honor of his predecessor Graham Hovey, director of the fellowship program from 1980 to 1986, to recognize a Knight-Wallace journalist whose career exemplifies the benefits of a fellowship and whose ensuing work is at the forefront of our national conversations. This year we welcomed Anna Clark, a 2017 Knight-Wallace Fellow and currently a journalist with ProPublica living in Detroit. She is the author of “The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy,” which won the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism and the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, and was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. She is a nonfiction faculty member in Alma College’s MFA Program in Creative Writing and was also a Fulbright fellow in creative writing in Kenya. Anna sat down with director Lynette Clemetson to discuss the dangers of a culture of secrecy and what it takes to push back.

Q: When I raised the idea of government transparency to you as a possible topic for your Hovey Lecture, I was concerned that you might think it was too wonky, but you were all in.

A: Freedom of information and public disclosure policies are part of our architecture for democracy and justice. I’m very passionate about it.

Q: Many people don’t know that Michigan ranks low in some areas of transparency.

A: I love this state, but I am sorry to say that we are not on the strongest side of this issue. We’re notable for being one of only two states in which the legislature and the governor’s office are exempt from public records requests.

Anna Clark returned to Wallace House not only with her infectious smile, but to offer insight into the restrictive laws preventing access to public records.

Q: It comes up for debate regularly, but the law hasn’t changed.

A: Well, interestingly, whatever party is not in power is really pro opening things up, and then once they are in power, they hesitate. (Laughs.) So yeah, people have been talking about this for years and years. And it has real stakes for the ability of reporters to do their jobs and for people to know what’s going on in their communities.

Q: For large institutions that get a lot of requests, public universities included, it can be easy to think of FOIA as a nuisance. How do we change that?

A: It’s true. Not every FOIA request is made in the name of democracy. There are frivolous requests, harassing ones, excessive ones, overly vague and broad ones that are a genuine burden to our public officials. Still, I think it is a virtue that you aren’t required to give a reason to make a request. If you’re an official who is doing the right thing, if you’re educating people, serving this state, this nation, in important ways, that should be evident in the details of the released records. Not making them available, even when you’re doing the right things, cultivates a kind of secrecy that breeds suspicion and distrust.

Q: There’s been a lot written about how a lack of government transparency exacerbated the water disaster in Flint. You document the downfalls in your book, “The Poisoned City.” You also recently wrote about a lack of transparency in a different part of the state—the ongoing wait for an external review of the 2021 mass shooting at Oxford High School. How do larger government transparency issues relate to the situation in Oxford?

A: The Oxford school shooting in November 2021 was a very different kind of crisis than Flint. What’s similar is that the people in Oxford are starved for a clear, comprehensive telling of what happened, not just in the courts, which are prosecuting the shooter and his parents, but in the context of their school and the public school district that had a number of interactions with the shooter in the days and hours leading up to the shooting.

If you have a culture where the attitude is “just trust us” and you expect people to be okay with it, that trickles down to even the most locally elected, part-time, volunteer school board officials, who nonetheless are responsible for high-stakes decisions that could potentially cost people their lives. We’re creating a norm that is actually dangerous where this culture of secrecy is something we’re familiar with. That doesn’t mean it needs to be our normal.

Tabbye Chavous, Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion, Chief Diversity Officer at the University of Michigan and member of the Wallace House Executive Advisory Board, welcomes guests to the Wallace House gardens.

Q: How did the fellowship prepare you to tackle this issue of government secrecy, starting with your book on Flint?

A: Well, I was a completely fried, burned out, single, full-time freelancer working all the time and feeling increasingly depleted. Without the fellowship, I don’t know how I would have emotionally been able to sustain the work of reporting and writing the book, let alone the emotional toll. Having fun with people, sleeping more, not worrying about my bills all the time, it was so restorative. And that was essential to help me go forward to finish this book and bring it into the world.

Q: What did you gain from the university?

A: It was a powerful opportunity to come at the book with resources and tools I just never had before. I took classes in the law school on water policy and environmental justice. I took an urban planning class on metropolitan structures. Visiting cities in Brazil and South Korea gave me a new perspective to think about how cities in the U.S. are made and unmade. Not having any institutional affiliation or much money when I came to the fellowship, I never had access to archives like that. Suddenly, I got this university email address and all the resources of the campus libraries, including the library at the U-M’s Flint campus, became available.

Q: And yet, you didn’t come into the fellowship with a concrete plan for what you were going to do. That makes a lot of people nervous. What advice would you give to current or future fellows who worry about having everything mapped out?

A: Some of it is just trusting yourself. Like, if you have a Tuesday, and you don’t have any classes at all, you can trust that things will show up on that day that you will learn and grow from, including just empty space, which might be the thing you need most of all.

Q: That can be a hard case to make when people’s careers feel so perilous and the industry is under so much pressure.

A: The toll this work takes—even in the best of times, let alone in these times of scarcity and threat—is so excruciating. If people are going to do this work for years and decades, well, people are not machines. We’re not machines. You need to replenish yourself. We need journalists who are whole people, who have the internal and external resources to sustain themselves for the long run. This program is so rare for truly investing in journalists, not just in what they produce. That’s an investment in journalism for the long term, not just the news cycle.

Wallace House director Lynette Clemetson presents Anna Clark with the inscribed Hovey Bowl and her name added to the Hovey Lecture plaque.

Anna Clark is a 2017 Knight-Wallace Fellow.

The Eisendrath Symposium brings the Oscar-nominated documentary “20 Days in Mariupol”

Wallace House Presents a free screening of the Oscar-nominated documentary “20 Days In Mariupol,” and a conversation with the filmmakers

WCEE Film and Eisendrath Symposium Event
5:30 PM | Monday, FEB. 5, 2024
Michigan Theater

Free and open to the public.
This is a non-ticketed event.
Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis

This event will not be live-streamed.

A special screening and conversation

An AP team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting atrocities of the Russian invasion. As the only international reporters who remain in the city, they capture what later become defining images of the war. The documentary shows vivid, harrowing accounts of civilians caught in the siege and a window into what it’s like to report from a conflict zone and the impact of such journalism around the globe.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

The Eisendrath Symposium honors Charles R. Eisendrath, former director of Wallace House, and his lifelong commitment to international journalism.

About the filmmakers

Mstyslav Chernov is a documentary director and video journalist at The Associated Press and president of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers. Since joining the AP in 2014, he has covered major conflicts, social issues and environmental crises across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Most recently, Chernov documented Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Together with longtime colleague Evgeniy Maloletka, Chernov recorded the siege of Mariupol, showing the world eyewitness accounts of the Russian attacks on the city in the documentary “20 Days in Mariupol.” Chernov’s reporting in Mariupol earned the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary.

Raney Aronson-Rath is the editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE, PBS’ flagship investigative journalism series, and is a leading voice on the future of journalism. Aronson-Rath oversees FRONTLINE’s acclaimed investigative reporting on air and online and directs the series’ editorial vision — executive producing more than 20 in-depth documentaries each year on critical issues facing the country and the world. FRONTLINE has won every major award in broadcast journalism under Aronson-Rath’s leadership. She is a producer of the documentary “20 Days in Mariupol.” For nearly two decades, Aronson-Rath has served as a Livingston Awards judge. A program of Wallace House Center for Journalists, the prize honors reporters under the age of 35 and identifies the next generation of journalism leaders. 

Michelle Mizner is an Emmy-winning documentary producer and film editor on staff at FRONTLINE PBS. Her work for the series has been recognized by the Peabodys, World Press Photo, duPont-Columbia Awards, and SXSW. Select titles as a producer and editor include “Life in Baghdad,”  “Inside Yemen,” with correspondent Martin Smith, and “The Last Call” with director Marcela Gaviria. In addition to films, Mizner has produced several acclaimed interactive documentaries, including “Inheritance,” “The Last Generation,” and “Un(re)solved.” She is the producer and editor of the documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” her first feature-length film.

Co-sponsors:
Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia
International Institute
Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies

This event is produced with support from Knight Foundation.

The Eisendrath Years

This article appeared in the Fall 2023 issue of the Wallace House Journal. 

“What is your dream?”That’s how longtime director Charles Eisendrath started interviews. When I arrived in Ann Arbor for my interview in 2002 with 30 or so other finalists, the question conjured up delightful and spirited responses from many applicants and stumped others. Previous fellows had told me to expect that question from Charles. But I wondered, what does dreaming have to do with anything in my work?

The Cambridge English Dictionary sums it up in one definition as hope: “an event or condition that you hope for very much, although it is not likely to happen.”

At the time I started my fellowship, I could not yet see where my time at Michigan might lead me. I just knew I wanted a bigger spot for my journalism.

Charles Eisendrath became Director of the Fellowship Program in 1986.

I was working in a medium-sized television market at WRALTV in Raleigh, North Carolina, a great station all around. But I was feeling frustrated. Many of us start our careers as generalists. We find what we’re good at and our employers hone in. Over time we get boxed in, and that thing that made us stand out starts to hem us in. We forget the wide-open optimism of our early careers and tunnel vision takes over.

I was the Education Fellow in 2002-03. But I also had music on my mind. In addition to my reporting career, I have always maintained a side gig as a professional classical musician. I have sung with the Virginia Symphony Chorus and the professional chamber group Virginia Pro Musica. I also spent time with the Raleigh Oratorio Society and the ROS Master Singers. During my time in the fellowship, I learned that my journalism and music were spiritually connected. When producing effective news stories, my music tended to be good, and vice-versa. When I came to the fellowship, I had been neglecting my music training and performance. And I had developed a puzzling case of stage fright and performance anxiety. So, beyond my formal study project, I wanted to spend time at the School of Music.

When I presented myself, the dean had never heard of the fellowship. She told me I could not take voice lessons. I produced my music résumé and she changed her tune. I was in! However, my assigned voice teacher made one requirement of me. I had to perform at the end of the Winter semester. Publicly. Stage fright and all.

And I did. At Wallace House.

I visited Charles in Ann Arbor on a trip home where he told me, “Dream bigger!”


I chose to perform at Wallace House because other Fellows were my friends and not likely to pick apart the performance as music students and faculty are prone to do. I did invite my voice teacher from Michigan and my former Belleville High School choral music teacher to a program of classical art songs and a few pieces from the Great American Songbook.

I was terrified, but I got through it. Kind of like contemplating my next steps in reporting.

I wanted independence and in 2003, I was getting it. I had decided not to return to WRAL, and it hit me in February of my fellowship that I had no job waiting, even though I’d studied the intricacies of No Child Left Behind, news convergence, and educational gaming. What had I done? What was I going to do?

Charles Eisendrath chuckled when he told my fellowship group, “Yvonne has succeeded in being the fellow to panic the earliest during the fellowship year!” But part of the Eisendrath charm was to encourage us to move forward. Light would illuminate our paths when we were ready.

I did freelance work for a short period of time after the fellowship, followed by a Monday-through-Friday anchor job. At one time, I had thought that was my calling. It turned out to be a bit of a bore. So much for dreams! I visited Charles in Ann Arbor on a trip home where he told me, “Dream bigger!”

So, in 2005, I made a leap to journalism management. I am helping train the next generation of journalists in television and digital pathways, and there is much to do! One job led to the next, all across the country. I landed in Sacramento at the CBS networkowned station, where I thought I might stay. But darn if I didn’t start wanting something with a bit more challenge. I jumped to Portland, Oregon, where I lead a large staff and helped us turn a 3 station into a #1 station in the market. I am also on the ABC Affiliate Advisory Board, helping the network better serve its partner stations. It’s been 17 years of bigger dreams— and counting.

The fellowship doesn’t ask that dream question anymore, not explicitly anyway. But, the concept survives: Hope for something more, and trust in the journey that leads you toward it.

Charles Eisendrath introduced the first issue of The Journal of Michigan Fellows in the summer of 1990. The subsequent issues evolved into what is now the Wallace House Journal.

Yvonne Simons is a 2003 Knight-Wallace Fellow.

The Graham Hovey Years

 

This article appeared in the Fall 2023 issue of the Wallace House Journal.

 

Life as a journalist was a lot less complicated in 1981 when I arrived in Ann Arbor as a member of the Michigan Fellows Class of 1981-82, during Graham Hovey’s tenure as director. It was at a time when the internet barely existed. Computers were rudimentary at best, and cell phones wouldn’t be widely available for another couple years. No 24-hour news cycles. No social media to watch over or feed. No online anything.

For most of us, the sprint to capture the important events and issues of the day ended at deadline when keyboards fell silent and the massive presses a few floors below roared to life moments later, rumbling beneath our feet.

Diane Brozek and Charles Fancher
Diane Brozek and Charles Fancher met during their 1981-82 fellowship year and have been together for more than four decades.

We came from news operations that, for the most part, were rich, powerful and fiercely independent—before online advertising and public access to news and information decimated the traditional newspaper business model and before corporate conglomerates and hedge funds began gobbling up newspapers and local broadcast media.

Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and operating from a two-room suite in the Frieze Building, which no longer exists, Graham led six classes of Fellows between 1980 and 1986, through one of the most meaningful years of

We came from news operations that, for the most part, were rich, powerful and fiercely independent—before online advertising and public access to news and information decimated the traditional newspaper business model and before corporate conglomerates and hedge funds began gobbling up newspapers and local broadcast media.

Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and operating from a two-room suite in the Frieze Building, which no longer exists, Graham led six classes of Fellows between 1980 and 1986, through one of the most meaningful years of our careers.

Graham didn’t let us forget that we were journalists, making sure our weekly journalism seminars included some of the major figures of our time.


Graham was a Renaissance man. A Fulbright scholar, a talented amateur French horn player, a lover of opera, and an award-winning journalist who made the transition from World War II correspondent to covering post-war Europe. He reported on diplomacy and international affairs and served on the editorial board of The New York Times. Graham was an exemplar of what the NEH sought to achieve by immersing the Fellows in the community of a great university, free of the pressures of daily journalism for a year.

And our editors agreed. They supported the NEH’s notion that exposing mid-career journalists to all that a world-class university could offer would enhance their professional capacity.

So we eagerly pursued our own courses of study, venturing out to classes in medicine, law, foreign affairs, business and the arts, with the NEH reminding us to include a ration of humanities courses.

The “East Coast Fellows” from the Graham Hovey years at a reunion in 1998 at the weekend home of Diane and Charles Fancher in Pennsylvania. Graham and his wife, Mary Jean, are pictured center on the landing.

Graham reinforced this suggestion by bringing to our humanities seminars some of the school’s most distinguished professors who were giants in their fields. One that I fondly remember is the late Diane Kirkpatrick, a world-renowned art expert. She became one of the friends of the fellowship who seemed both amused by and respectful of our group while inviting us to see the world’s great art and its impact through her eyes.

Spending time with her and with other U-M faculty luminaries underscored the value of what our fellowship offered. And, opening ourselves to this discovery allowed us to reshape our own paths. That enrichment continued through our trips to Japan, Germany and Australia, where Graham arranged opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with leaders of those countries.

But Graham didn’t let us forget that we were journalists, making sure our weekly journalism seminars included some of the major figures of our time. One of them was the flamboyant Gannett Chairman, Al Neuharth, who picked our brains about his idea to start a national newspaper. “Do you think it’ll fly?” he asked. Regardless of our opinions—and we offered many—he launched USA Today two months after we left Ann Arbor.

Another larger-than-life editor who visited was Gene Roberts of The Philadelphia Inquirer, where the tradition of playing newsroom-wide pranks was legend. He totally enjoyed the belly dancer who dropped in to regale Graham for his birthday, but it was one of the few times we ever saw Graham speechless. I was hired by Gene after my fellowship year, though the topic of the dancer never came up.

My year at the Michigan program also had a deeply important impact on my life. I met my husband, Charles Fancher, during our fellowship year to the delight of Graham, his charming wife Mary Jean, and Margaret DeMuth, his extraordinary program assistant. In addition, several of the Fellows from our year have become close lifelong friends.

Diane and Charles are now friendly with 2023 Fellows Alexandra Talty and Antoni Slodkowski, who also fell in love during their fellowship and are now engaged!

A special treat over the years has been meeting new Fellows, sometimes at the annual Graham Hovey Lecture, given by a former Fellow in Graham’s honor. But meeting the 2022-23 class during a recent visit was especially gratifying, not only because it was so representative of what the program has become— so international and committed to the safety and welfare of journalists from troubled corners of the world—but also because this class featured something we hadn’t seen for the four-plus decades since our time in the program—a serious romance. Alexandra Talty and Antoni Slodkowski, 2022-23 Fellows, whom we’ve had the great pleasure of getting to know, have announced their engagement, and we wish them at least the 44 happy years Charles and I have enjoyed together.

Diane Brozek is a 1982 Knight-Wallace Fellow.

An MLK Symposium Event with journalist and author Rachel Swarns

Slavery and the U.S. Catholic Church: Confronting History and the Case for Reparations


4 PM | THURSDAY, JAN. 18, 2024

Rackham Amphitheatre, 4th floor
915 Washington Street

In-person, free and open to the public
Watch the video recording.

Register Here
Registrations are not required but allow us to send you event updates and reminders.

What is the responsibility of American institutions in reparative justice?

Join New York Times journalist and author Rachel Swarns in conversation with Wallace House director Lynette Clemetson, as she discusses her book “The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold To Build the American Catholic Church,” a story of servitude and slavery spanning nearly two centuries and detailing the beginnings of Georgetown University and the U.S. Catholic Church. Swarns’s journalism started a national conversation about universities with ties to slavery.

“The 272” will be available for purchase at the event. The author will stay for a short book signing after the program.

About the speaker

Rachel Swarns is a journalist, author and associate professor of journalism at New York University, who writes about race and race relations as a contributing writer for The New York Times. Her articles about Georgetown University’s roots in slavery touched off a national conversation about American universities and their ties to this painful period of history. Her book, “The 272,” emerged from her reporting at The Times and focuses on Georgetown and the Catholic Church and their roots in slavery. It was selected as one of the best books of 2023 by The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Time magazine, The Washington Post, the Chicago Public Library and Kirkus Reviews. “The 272” was also one of 24 books longlisted for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.

About the moderator

Lynette Clemetson is the Charles R. Eisendrath Director of Wallace House Center for Journalists, home of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists at the University of Michigan.

Co-Sponsors
Center for Racial Justice housed at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Center for Social Solutions
Donia Human Rights Center
Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies

This is a 2023 U-M Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium event.

EXPLORE MORE WALLACE HOUSE EVENTS

Two Esteemed Journalists Appointed to the Livingston Awards Regional Judging Panel

Meghna Chakrabarti, host and editor of “On Point,” and Adam Ganucheau, editor-in-chief of Mississippi Today Join the Livingston Awards Judging Panel

Wallace House Center for Journalists welcomes the addition of Meghna Chakrabarti, host and editor of WBUR’s “On Point,” and Adam Ganucheau, editor-in-chief of Mississippi Today, to the Livingston Awards regional judging panel. They will join our esteemed regional and national judges in identifying the best reporting and storytelling by journalists under the age of 35.

Chakrabarti is the award-winning host and editor of “On Point,” a weekday radio show produced by WBUR in Boston and distributed by American Public Media. “On Point” has been frequently recognized for excellence in journalism under Chakrabarti’s leadership, reporting on the economy, health care, politics and the environment. She previously served as the host of “Radio Boston,” WBUR’s acclaimed weekday local show, and “Modern Love: The Podcast,” a collaboration of WBUR and The New York Times. Chakrabarti holds a master’s degree from Harvard University and an MBA with honors from Boston University.

Ganucheau is the editor-in-chief of Mississippi Today, Mississippi’s largest newsroom. He was the lead editor of the 2023 Livingston Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation “The Backchannel,” exposing high-profile players’ roles in the state’s welfare scandal. He previously worked as a staff reporter for Mississippi Today, AL.com, The Birmingham News, and the Clarion Ledger. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ganucheau earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Mississippi.

The regional judges read all qualifying entries and select the finalists in local, national and international reporting categories. In addition to Chakrabarti and Ganucheau the regional judging panel includes Molly Ball of The Wall Street Journal; Stella M. Chávez of KERA Public Radio (Dallas); David Greene of Fearless Media; Stephen Henderson of BridgeDetroit, WDET public radio and Detroit Public Television; and Amna Nawaz of “PBS NewsHour.”

The national judges read all final entries and meet to select the Livingston winners in the local, national and international reporting categories and the Richard M. Clurman recipient, an award honoring a senior journalist for on-the-job mentoring. The national judging panel includes Raney Aronson-Rath of PBS; Sewell Chan of The Texas Tribune; Audie Cornish of CNN;  Matt Murray of News Corp; Lydia Polgreen of The New York Times; María Elena Salinas of ABC News; Bret Stephens of The New York Times; and Kara Swisher of New York Magazine.

Now Accepting Entries

The Livingston Awards are now accepting entries for work published in 2023. The entry deadline is February 1, 2024.

About the Livingston Awards


Livingston Awards honor journalists under the age of 35 for outstanding achievement in local, national and international reporting across all forms of journalism. The awards bolster the work of young reporters, create the next generation of journalism leaders and mentors, and advance civic engagement around powerful storytelling. The Livingston Awards are a program of Wallace House Center for Journalists at the University of Michigan, home to the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Wallace House Presents event series.

An Interactive Webinar for Fellowship Applicants

Learn More About the Knight-Wallace Fellowships and Hear from our Alumni.

Are you ready to take the next step in your journalism career with a Knight-Wallace Fellowship? Join our webinar with alumni Makeda Easter ‘23, Chris Marquette ‘23 and Elodie Vialle ‘20 and learn how the fellowship boosted their careers. Hear about their fellowship experiences, ask them your questions, and discover what a year in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan can do for your life and journalism career.

Noon – 1 p.m. ET | Thursday, November 16. 
RSVP here to receive the Zoom link.

About the Speakers

Makeda Easter (2022-2023) is a journalist and creative artist based in Chicago. As a Knight-Wallace Fellow, she deepened and expanded “the art rebellion,” an art-reporting project that amplifies the essential role of artists in the U.S. and the stories of artists who fight to improve their communities.

Chris Marquette (2022-2023) is a congressional accountability reporter for CQ Roll Call in Washington, D.C., covering the U.S. Capitol Police and lawmaker transgressions. The Knight-Wallace Fellowship enabled him to complete an in-depth investigative series on trends and practices among the U.S. Capitol Police and potential areas for reform.

Elodie Vialle (2019-2020) is a journalist at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard. She is also a Senior Advisor on Digital Safety and Free Expression at PEN America. During her Knight-Wallace Fellowship, she developed safety protocols, programs, and training for journalists facing online attacks.

Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship applications for the 2024-2025 academic year are now open.

The deadline for international applicants is December 1, 2023.

The deadline for U.S. applicants is February 1, 2024.

More About Knight-Wallace Fellowship

CNN Anchor Jake Tapper in conversation with Lynette Clemetson

CNN anchor and author Jake Tapper
in conversation with Lynette Clemetson, director of Wallace House


4 – 5:30 PM | Friday, Nov. 3, 2023

Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre
911 N University Ave

Free and open to the public.

This is an in-person event. Register for this event.
Registrations are not required but allow us to send you event
updates and reminders.

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Watch the live stream here.

Join us for a special event featuring CNN anchor and Chief Washington correspondent, Jake Tapper, as part of the continuing series: “Democracy in Crisis: Views from the Press.” Tapper will be joined in conversation with Wallace House Director, Lynette Clemetson. Their wide-ranging discussion will cover the state of democracy and the role and responsibility of the press in a democratic society, as well as how Tapper’s experience of being an anchor and correspondent informs his craft of writing fiction.

Tapper’s newly released book, “All the Demons Are Here,” will be available for purchase at the event. The author will stay for a short book signing after the program.

About Jake Tapper

CNN anchor and chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper joined the network in January 2013. Tapper currently anchors a two-hour weekday program, “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” which debuted in March 2013. He has hosted CNN’s Sunday morning show, “State of the Union,” since June 2015. In April 2021, he became the lead anchor for CNN for Washington, D.C. events.

About Lynette Clemetson

Lynette Clemetson is the Charles R. Eisendrath Director of Wallace House Center for Journalists, home of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists at the University of Michigan.

Co-Sponsors

Gerald R. Ford School
Democracy and Debate
With support from Detroit Public Television (DPTV)

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An Evening with Martin Baron and Stephen Henderson

Wallace House Presents a book event with Martin Baron at the Detroit Public Theater

“Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos and The Washington Post”

6 PM | MONDAY, OCT. 16, 2023

An in-person event at Detroit Public Theater
3960 Third Avenue, Detroit

Seats are limited. Reserve your free ticket here.

Co-Sponsored by Detroit Public Television; PBS Books; and the Detroit Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists 

An evening with Martin Baron in conversation with Stephen Henderson

For eight years, Martin Baron served as executive editor of The Washington Post, leading its newsroom from Jeff Bezos’s purchase of the paper to the election and presidency of Donald Trump. Join Baron in conversation with Stephen Henderson for a discussion on Baron’s new book, “Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and The Washington Post,” as he details his tenure at The Post and examines larger issues of the press and its role in democracy.

The author’s book will be available for sale onsite by Source Booksellers.

Parking

Parking for Detroit Public Theatre is available in a lot located at 3912 Third Avenue – just a few feet from the theatre on the corner of Selden and Third. Spots are limited and available on a first-come/first-served basis. They are $15 each.

There are additional parking options within walking distance of the theatre. There is metered parking on Selden Street and on Third Avenue, as well as free street parking in the immediate neighborhood on residential streets. Please reference this map to see the parking options in the area.

Co-Sponsors
Detroit Public Television
PBS Books
Society of Professional Journalists – Detroit Chapter

EXPLORE MORE WALLACE HOUSE EVENTS

The 36th Graham Hovey Lecture with ProPublica’s Anna Clark

“Government Secrecy from Flint to Oxford: Freedom of Information and the Public’s Right to Know”

September 12, 2023 | 5 p.m.
Reception following the lecture

Wallace House Gardens
620 Oxford Road, Ann Arbor

Welcome remarks by Tabbye Chavous,
Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer

Watch the video recording.

Michigan’s transparency laws are among the most restrictive in the nation. The state is one of only two that totally exempts the governor’s office and lawmakers from open records laws. With political polarization high and public trust in institutions low, a lack of transparency threatens to further weaken the social fabric. Pushing past the official version of events is essential to understanding abuses of power and exploring possible remedies.

For nearly two decades of reporting from and about Michigan, 2017 Knight-Wallace Fellow and ProPublica journalist Anna Clark has covered numerous consequential stories, from the Flint water crisis to the mass shooting at Oxford High School. Join her for a discussion on the dangers of a culture of secrecy for Michigan and beyond, and what it takes to push back.

This event will not be livestreamed. A recording of the lecture will be available on our website following the event.

About the Speaker

Anna Clark is a ProPublica journalist who lives in Detroit. She is the author of The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy, which won the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism and the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award, and was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.

Clark’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Elle, The New Republic, Politico, Columbia Journalism Review, and other publications. She edited “A Detroit Anthology,” a 2015 Michigan Notable Book.

She is a nonfiction faculty member in Alma College’s MFA Program in Creative Writing. She was a Fulbright fellow in creative writing in Kenya. As a 2017 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the Univeristy of Michigan, Clark explored how chronic underfunding of American cities imperils residents.

About the Graham Hovey Lecture

The annual Graham Hovey Lecture recognizes a Knight-Wallace journalist whose career exemplifies the benefits of a fellowship at the University of Michigan and whose ensuing work is at the forefront of our national conversations. The event is named for the late Graham Hovey, director of the fellowship program from 1980 to 1986 and a distinguished journalist for The New York Times.