The Eisendrath Symposium with Elena Milashina, Simon Ostrovsky and Ronald Suny

While the Russian invasion of Ukraine swiftly united NATO and western nations in condemning Putin, enacting sanctions and supplying defense weapons, there are growing cries for the U.S. and its NATO allies to do more militarily. Join Knight-Wallace journalists who have reported extensively from the region and a U-M policy expert as they examine Putin’s suppression of a free press, the call for direct military support, and the geopolitical, economic and humanitarian consequences of the growing conflict.

Elena Milashina is an award-winning senior investigative reporter for Novaya Gazeta, the acclaimed independent Russian news organization that recently ceased publication in response to threats of closure and imprisonment from the Putin regime. Simon Ostrovsky is a video journalist and filmmaker who reports for PBS NewsHour and The New York Times. Ronald Suny is a professor of history and political science at U-M and a senior researcher at the National Research University-Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Wallace House Director, Lynette Clemetson, will lead this discussion.

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

About the Speakers

Elena Milashina is a 2009-2010 Knight-Wallace Fellow and an investigative journalist “Novaya Gazeta,” Russia’s last remaining independent newspaper before it ceased publication in response to threats from the Putin regime. She investigates and brings to attention accounts of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial executions, torture, and persecution of relatives of alleged insurgents, women’s rights in Chechnya and beyond. Milashina exposed a major crackdown on gay men in Chechnya in spring 2017, investigated the catastrophe of the Kursk submarine, and hostage crises in Moscow and Beslan. She has documented atrocities committed by both sides during the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict and pressed for an end to impunity. She has repeatedly received death threats from the Chechen authorities. She is the recipient of Human Rights Watch’s Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism ad the International Women of Courage Award.

Simon Ostrovsky is a 2021-2022 Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow. As a Special Correspondent for PBS NewsHour and an investigative journalist, he is best known for his coverage of the Crimea crisis and the war in eastern Ukraine for which he was nominated for two Emmys. He won a DuPont Award from Columbia University in 2015 for his “Selfie Soldiers” documentary, which tracked Russian soldiers in Ukraine through their social media posts, and an Emmy Award in 2014 as a producer of VICE on HBO. Ostrovsky has covered extensively the countries of the former Soviet Union, where he witnessed five revolutions and four wars. He has served as South Caucasus Bureau Chief for Agence France Presse and as an investigative reporter at CNN. His work also has appeared on the BBC and CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”

Ronald Suny is the William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History and Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and Emeritus Professor of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago.  The grandson of the composer and ethnomusicologist Grikor Mirzaian Suni and a graduate of Swarthmore College and Columbia University, he taught at Oberlin College (1968-1981), as visiting professor of history at the University of California, Irvine (1987), and Stanford University (1995-1996).  He also served as Senior Researcher at the National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg (2014-2016).  He was the first holder of the Alex Manoogian Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of Michigan (1981-1995), where he founded and directed the Armenian Studies Program. 

About the Moderator

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

Thank you to our co-sponsors:

Knight Foundation

Michigan Radio

Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia

Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies

Detroit Public Television

PBS Books

Wallace House partners with Ford School for Speaker Series “Democracy in Crisis: Views from the Press”

Featured speakers from left to right include Molly Ball, Barton Gellman and Anne Applebaum

About the Series

U.S. democratic institutions are under attack. While law enforcement agencies and a Congressional committee still work to investigate the January 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol – political violence aimed at blocking or overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election – a wave of subsequent efforts have continued to seek to undermine the norms and structures that have given Americans basic confidence in elections and in the peaceful transfer of power. Meanwhile, from statehouses to the Supreme Court, bitter debates rage over voting rights, access, and security. The University of Michigan will host four award-winning journalists who will share their insights into the forces threatening and protecting American democratic structures and systems.

The series will also explore the current state of journalism and the role of the press in upholding democratic institutions–at a time of demagogic attacks on the media and dramatic shifts in media ownership and independence. The series begins with three events in March featuring Molly Ball, Barton Gellman, and Sarah Kendzior, and will culminate in a keynote lecture at the Michigan League by Pulitzer Prize winning author, journalist, and historian, Anne Applebaum, on April 4.

This speaker series is hosted by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Co-sponsored by Democracy & Debate, Wallace House, Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum, and Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation.

Molly Ball, “Democracy: What It Takes”

4:30 p.m. ET | Wednesday, March 9

Weill Hall, Betty Ford Classroom (1110)

735 S. State Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Watch the event

Join us for a discussion with two Knight-Wallace alumni. Hear from TIME National Political Correspondent and Molly Ball in conversation with longtime political writer Craig Gilbert to kick off the Spring 2022 Democracy in Crisis series.

This is an in-person event limited to current University of Michigan students, faculty, and staff. All attendees will be required to complete the ResponsiBlue screening before entering the building, and masks are required. Registration is required to attend.

The event will also be live-streamed for those outside of the university, or university members who choose not to attend in person. The live stream will appear on this page on the day of the event. Registration for the live stream is optional.

About the Event

The 2020 election, conducted in the shadow of an unprecedented pandemic and a president determined to sabotage the vote, laid bare how fragile America’s democratic institutions are. What did we learn from the weaknesses 2020 exposed? What efforts are underway to sabotage—and protect—the next national election? And how can we strengthen democracy going forward?

About the Speaker

A prominent voice on U.S. politics, Molly Ball serves as national political correspondent for Time and is a frequent television and radio commentator. She is the author of Pelosi, the first biography written with the House Speaker’s cooperation. Prior to joining Time, Ball was a staff writer covering U.S. politics for The Atlantic. She previously reported for Politico, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and the Las Vegas Sun. She has worked for newspapers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia, as well as The New York Times and The Washington Post. Ball is the recipient of the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency, the Sandy Hume Memorial Award for Excellence in Political Journalism, and the Lee Walczak Award for Political Analysis for her coverage of political campaigns. A graduate of Yale University, she was a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow at the University of Michigan in 2009-2010 and serves on the Livingston Award judging panel.

About the Moderator

Craig Gilbert is the recently retired Washington Bureau Chief and national political reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He has covered every presidential campaign since 1988 and chronicled Wisconsin’s role as the nation’s most enduring political battleground. Gilbert has written extensively about the battle for the swing states of the industrial Midwest, the region’s shifting political map, its increasingly polarized political culture and the deepening urban-rural divide. His work has been recognized by Editor & Publisher, the National Press Foundation, the National Headliner Awards, the Milwaukee Press Club, and the Columbia Journalism Review, which called him the “most political science friendly reporter in America.” Gilbert was a Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan; a writer in residence at the University of Wisconsin, and is currently a Lubar Fellow at the Marquette Law School. Gilbert previously worked for the Miami Herald, the Kingston (NY) Daily Freeman and was a speechwriter for New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He has a B.A. in History from Yale University.

Barton Gellman, “Democracy in Crisis”

4:00 p.m. ET | Wednesday, March 23

Register now

Watch here

Join us for Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Barton Gellman in conversation with Michigan Law Professor from Practice Barbara McQuade, as part of the spring 2022 Democracy in Crisis series.

This is a virtual event.

About the Speaker

Barton Gellman, a staff writer at The Atlantic, is the author most recently of Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State and the bestselling Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. He has held positions as senior fellow at The Century Foundation, Lecturer at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School and visiting research collaborator at Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy. Before joining The Atlantic, Gellman spent 21 years at The Washington Post, where he served tours as legal, diplomatic, military and Middle East correspondent. Gellman anchored the team that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of the National Security Agency and Edward Snowden. He was previously awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series on Vice President Dick Cheney. In 2002, he was a member of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for coverage of the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. Other professional honors include two George Polk Awards, two Overseas Press Club awards, two Emmy awards for a PBS Frontline documentary, Harvard’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

About the Moderator

Barbara L. McQuade, BA ’87, JD ’91, is a professor from practice. Her interests include criminal law, criminal procedure, national security, data privacy, and civil rights. From 2010 to 2017, Professor McQuade served as the U.S attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Appointed by President Barack Obama, she was the first woman to serve in her position. Professor McQuade also served as vice-chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee and co-chaired its Terrorism and National Security Subcommittee. As U.S. attorney, she oversaw cases involving public corruption, terrorism, corporate fraud, theft of trade secrets, civil rights, and health care fraud, among others. Professor McQuade also serves as a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Lawfare, Just Security, Slate, and National Public Radio, and she has been quoted in The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, Politico, and other publications. Before becoming U.S. attorney, Professor McQuade served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit for 12 years, serving as deputy chief of the National Security Unit, where she handled cases involving terrorism financing, export violations, threats, and foreign agents. Professor McQuade began her career practicing law at the firm of Butzel Long in Detroit. Professor McQuade previously taught at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. Professor McQuade has been recognized by the Detroit Free Press with the Neal Shine Award for Exemplary Regional Leadership, The Detroit News with the Michiganian of the Year Award, Crain’s Detroit Business as a Newsmaker of the Year and one of Detroit’s Most Influential Women, the Detroit Branch NAACP and Arab American Civil Rights League with their Tribute to Justice Award, and the Council on Legal Education Opportunity with their Diversity Award.

Sarah Kendzior, “Hiding in Plain Sight”

4:30 p.m. ET | Thursday, March 31

Register Now

Sarah Kendzior, author of Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America, will be in conversation with Jonathan Hanson, political scientist and lecturer in statistics at the Ford School as part of the spring 2022 Democracy in Crisis series.

This is a virtual event. The event will have a live watch party in Weill Hall, Room 1110. A free copy of Sarah Kendzior’s book, Hiding in Plain Sight, will be provided for attendees at the viewing party on a first-come first-serve basis. Attendance at this watch party is limited to current University of Michigan students, faculty, and staff. All attendees will be required to complete the ResponsiBlue screening before entering the building, and masks are required. Registration is required to attend.

About the Speaker

Sarah Kendzior is a journalist who lectures on politics, the economy, and the media. Since 2006, she has regularly given talks and keynotes at universities and policy forums around the world. She is the author of the best-selling book The View From Flyover Country, which was re-released in 2018 after originally being published as an eBook in 2015 and becoming a bestseller the following year, and her new book Hiding in Plain Sight. 

Sarah Kendzior received her Ph.D. studying the authoritarian states of the former Soviet Union and has since put that expertise to use in explaining what is happening to the United States. Today she writes regularly for the Globe and Mail, NBC News, and Fast Company. She has over 350,000 followers on Twitter and is regularly interviewed by the media both in the US and abroad. In summer 2018, she launched the Gaslit Nation podcast with Andrea Chalupa. She is a recurring guest on the MSNBC show AM Joy, where she discusses corruption in the Trump administration as well as the Russian interference scandal.

Sarah Kendzior’s Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America pulls back the veil on a history spanning decades, a history of an American autocrat in the making. In doing so, she reveals the inherent fragility of American democracy – how our continual loss of freedom, the rise of consolidated corruption, and the secrets behind a burgeoning autocratic United States have been hiding in plain sight for decades.

Anne Applebaum, “Democracy in Crisis: The Twilight of Democracy”

4:00 p.m. ET | Monday, April 4

Michigan League Ballroom

911 N University Ave. Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Register Now

Pulitzer Prize winning historian, journalist and commentator Anne Applebaum delivers the keynote lecture of the Spring 2022 Democracy in Crisis series, in conversation with Ford School Dean Michael S. Barr.

This is an in-person event. All in-person attendees will be required to complete the ResponsiBlue screening before entering the building. Registration is required to attend.

The event will also be livestreamed for those who choose not to attend in-person. The livestream will appear on this page the day of the event. Registration is optional.

About the Speaker

Pulitzer Prize winning historian, journalist and commentator on geopolitics, Anne Applebaum, examines the challenges and opportunities of global political and economic change through the lenses of world history and the contemporary political landscape. Informed by her expertise in Europe and her years of international reporting, Applebaum shares perspectives on, and the far-reaching implications of, today’s volatile world events. In July 2020, Penguin published Anne’s book ‘Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism’. Anne was later named one of “The Top 50 Thinkers of the Covid-19 Age” by Prospect magazine. She is a Senior Fellow of International Affairs and Agora Fellow in Residence at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. For many years, Applebaum wrote a biweekly foreign affairs column for The Washington Post which is syndicated internationally. She is now a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Read Anne Applebaum’s current piece in The Atlantic on Russia’s war in Ukraine and why the world’s democratic powers must help Ukraine win.

Public Engagement 2021-2022

Wallace House teamed with partners across campus to bring conversations into the public spaces – both virtual and in-person. Thank you for joining us.

(L to R) Elena Milashina, Simon Ostrovsky and Ronald Suny

Wallace House Presents the Eisendrath Symposium with Elena Milashina, Simon Ostrovsky and Ronald Suny

Devastation in Ukraine and the Consequences of Engagement

April 18, Noon ET

Watch the event

While the Russian invasion of Ukraine swiftly united NATO and western nations in condemning Putin, enacting sanctions and supplying defense weapons, there are growing cries for the U.S. and its NATO allies to do more militarily. Join Knight-Wallace journalists who have reported extensively from the region and a U-M policy expert as they examine Putin’s suppression of a free press, the call for direct military support, and the geopolitical, economic and humanitarian consequences of the growing conflict.

Elena Milashina is an award-winning senior investigative reporter for Novaya Gazeta, the acclaimed independent Russian news organization that recently ceased publication in response to threats of closure and imprisonment from the Putin regime. Simon Ostrovsky is a video journalist and filmmaker who reports for PBS NewsHour and The New York Times. Ronald Suny is a professor of history and political science at U-M and a senior researcher at the National Research University-Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Wallace House Director, Lynette Clemetson, will lead this discussion.

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

The Knight Foundation, Ronald and Eileen Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia (WCEE), Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREES), Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Michigan Radio are co-sponsors of this event. 

Democracy in Crisis: Views from the Press

A special series featuring Molly Ball, Barton Gellman, Sarah Kendzior and Anne Applebaum

U.S. democratic institutions are under attack. While law enforcement agencies and a Congressional committee still work to investigate the January 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol – political violence aimed at blocking or overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election – a wave of subsequent efforts have continued to seek to undermine the norms and structures that have given Americans basic confidence in elections and in the peaceful transfer of power. Meanwhile, from statehouses to the Supreme Court, bitter debates rage over voting rights, access, and security.

The series will also explore the current state of journalism and the role of the press in upholding democratic institutions–at a time of demagogic attacks on the media and dramatic shifts in media ownership and independence.

March 9: Molly Ball, “Democracy: What It Takes”

March 23: Barton Gellman, “Democracy in Crisis” Virtual event

March 31: Sarah Kendzior, “Hiding in Plain Sight” Virtual event

April 4: Anne Applebaum, “Democracy in Crisis: The Twilight of Democracy” In-person event

This speaker series is hosted by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Co-sponsored by Democracy & Debate, Wallace House, Gerald R. Ford Library and Museum, and Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation.

Robin Wright Photo credit: April Brady/Project on Middle East Democracy

America’s Place in the Post-Afghanistan World

With Robin Wright, writer for The New Yorker and Jawad Sukhanyar, journalist and 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellow

4 p.m. ET | Wednesday, October 27

Watch Now

What are the implications of the U.S. retreat from Afghanistan? Does it mark the “end of the American era?” What can the world community do for the thousands of Afghan refugees across the globe? How will the Taliban government treat women and Afghans who worked with Western organizations? Amid the continuing uncertainty, journalists Robin Wright and Jawad Sukhanyar will give their perspectives on the evolving situation, in conversation with Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

 

Robin Wright has written for The New Yorker since 1988 as a contributing writer and columnist. Her first piece on Iran won the National Magazine Award for best reporting. A former correspondent for The Washington Post, CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, and The Sunday Times, she has reported from more than 140 countries. Wright is the author of several books. Her book, “Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World,” was selected as the best book on international affairs by the Overseas Press Club.

She received her bachelor of arts and masters’ degrees from the University of Michigan and was the first female sports editor for The Michigan Daily.

Jawad Sukhanyar, journalist and 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellow, was a reporter for The New York Times in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2019. He returned to Ann Arbor to join the university as a journalist-in-residence with the Donia Human Rights Center and the International Institute. This research fellowship, sponsored by Wallace House, will commence once Sukhanyar receives full clearance from U.S. resettlement and immigration officials. He will study the implication of the U.S. departure from Afghanistan and new rule under the Taliban.

Sukhanyar first came to the university in September 2018 as a Knight-Wallace Fellow, where he studied issues related to women’s rights in Afghanistan. Read more about Sukhanyar’s journey. 

This Policy Talks @ the Ford School event is co-sponsored by Wallace House and the Donia Human Rights Center.

Beth Fertig and Aisha Sultan

Covering 9/11: How the attacks shaped our world today

With Beth Fertig and Aisha Sultan

4 p.m. ET | September 9, 2021

Watch Now

It’s been 20 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the world we live in is still shaped in many ways by the events of that day. Join the Ford School and Wallace House for a special retrospective on 9/11 with journalists Beth Fertig of WNYC and Aisha Sultan, a nationally syndicated columnist, who has written about the U.S. Muslim experience, in a post-9/11, post-Trump America. Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House, will moderate the conversation. 

Beth Fertig is a senior reporter at WNYC. She is currently covering New York City’s economic recovery from the pandemic. Since starting her career at WNYC in 1995, she has reported on immigration, public education, 9/11, and city politics. She has won many local and national awards.

Fertig is a New York City native who discovered her love for journalism at The Michigan Daily, her college newspaper at the University of Michigan. She also has a Master’s degree in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. She is a frequent contributor to National Public Radio.

Aisha Sultan is a nationally syndicated columnist and award-winning filmmaker and features writer. Her work has run in more than a hundred publications. She has won several national honors, including the Asian American Journalists Association “Excellence in Written Journalism” award for her coverage of the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. Her work explores social change with an emphasis on education, families and inequality.  Sultan teaches college writing at Washington University. Her essay on being a Muslim in this country during 9/11 and the ensuing 20 years was published in the September 1, 2021 issue of Newsweek.

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

This event is a Josh Rosenthal Education Fund Lecture and part of the Policy Talks at The Ford School event series, co-sponsored by Wallace House. 

Inside The Cartel Project: The Power of Collaborative Investigative Journalism

With Laurent Richard, Dana Priest and Jorge Carrasco
Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

 

The Eisendrath Symposium on International Reporting

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

12:30 p.m. ET

Watch now

Watch Now

In 2012 Mexican journalist Regina Martinez was murdered in her home. She had been reporting on the links between drug cartels, public officials and thousands of individuals who had mysteriously disappeared. Eight years later, her investigations were published simultaneously around the world as The Cartel Project.

Forbidden Stories, a nonprofit newsroom created by Laurent Richard during his year as a Knight- Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, organized the project, secretly bringing together an international network of journalists dedicated to continuing the work of Martinez. Sixty reporters from 18 countries, followed her leads to expose a global network of Mexican drug cartels and their political connections around the world.

For a behind-the-scenes look at the global investigation, join the journalists who made it happen. Laurent Richard of Forbidden Stories, Dana Priest of The Washington Post and Jorge Carrasco, editor of Mexican news magazine Proceso, and a longtime friend of Regina Martinez, will share how collaborative journalism can keep alive the work of reporters who are silenced by threats, censorship or death.

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

More about The Cartel Project

About the speakers
Jorge Carrasco is a director of Proceso, an influential independent weekly in Mexico. Before joining Proceso 15 years ago, he was a reporter for El Economista and head of the UN Secretary General’s press office for Mexico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

Dana Priest has been a national security and investigative reporter for The Washington Post for more than 30 years. She is the recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes, an Emmy and two George Polk Awards, among other prizes. She is the author of two best-selling books and the Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the University of Maryland.

Laurent Richard is a French award-winning documentary filmmaker, producer and founder of Forbidden Stories, a network of investigative journalists whose mission is to continue and publish the work of other journalists facing threats, prison, or murder. Richard was a 2017 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, where he developed Forbidden Stories.

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

About the translator
Ana Avila is an investigative journalist from Mexico, a 2020 Knight-Wallace Fellow and the current Marsh Visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Michigan.

Knight Foundation is a co-sponsor of this event.

Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy. For more, visit knightfoundation.org.

Michigan Radio is a co-sponsor of this event.

Join our 2021 Virtual Awards Ceremony

Celebrating our 2021 Livingston Winners Together Online

 

Join us online from 12:30 to 2 p.m. ET on Thursday, June 10 for a virtual event to meet the Livingston winners in local, national and international reporting, honor their work in the pursuit of truth and celebrate the future of journalism. 

2021 marks 40 years of the Livingston Awards identifying exceptional young journalists and the next generation of newsroom leaders. This year’s fully virtual ceremony will feature all of the celebrity, young talent and inspiring journalism of our annual celebration in an online and safe environment.

We’ll miss gathering with our Livingston supporters and friends in person at our award luncheon in New York City, but we look forward to the participation of those from across the country and the world who can not regularly join us.  We look forward to celebrating with you on June 10.

Watch the ceremony on our Virtual Event page »

Public Engagement 2020-2021

During the 2020-2021 academic year, Wallace House teamed with partners across campus to bring conversations into the virtual public space.

Past Events | Fall 2020 – Winter 2021

Unearthing Tulsa: 100 Years Later

Unearthing Tulsa: 100 Years Later

A Conversation with Brent Staples, Fred Conrad and Scott Elsworth

Monday, May 17, 2021

4 p.m. ET

Register Now

Watch Here on May 17

Maybe you’ve heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre. It was one of the most horrific examples of white supremacist terrorism in the history of the United States and knowledge of the event was actively suppressed for over fifty years.

From May 31 to June 1, 1921, the Massacre saw the murder of hundreds of Black residents of the Greenwood neighborhood—a bustling and vibrant community known then as Black Wall Street—and more than one-thousand homes and businesses burned to the ground.

As we approach the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, UMMA and Wallace House invite you to revisit a moment in 1999 when the New York Times Magazine published Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Brent Staples‘ article “Unearthing a Riot,” which was the most significant national media coverage of the event at the time. Portraits of survivors made by renowned photojournalist and U-M alumnus Fred Conrad accompanied this important essay.

In this program, Staples and Conrad will be joined by U-M professor, best-selling author, and historian Scott Ellsworth, author of newly published book The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search for Justice, who will facilitate a conversation that will expand our understanding of what has been involved in making the history of Tulsa more visible and, by extension, illuminating the ever-present reality of racial terror and the resiliency of Black communities in our country.

This program is presented by UMMA as part of their ongoing commitment to anti-racist action, and organized in collaboration with professor Scott Ellsworth, a longtime Museum partner, and the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies with support from Wallace House.

Raney Aronson-Rath

Raney Aronson-Rath: A Conversation

Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

Friday, April 2, 2021

8 p.m. ET

Watch Here on April 2

Raney Aronson-Rath is the executive producer of FRONTLINE, PBS’ flagship investigative journalism series, and a leading voice on the future of journalism. Aronson-Rath oversees FRONTLINE’s acclaimed reporting on air and online and directs the series’ editorial vision, executive producing over 20 documentaries each year on critical issues facing the country and world. Under her leadership, FRONTLINE has earned two Oscar nominations, and has won every major award in broadcast journalism, including Peabody Awards, Emmy Awards, an Institutional Peabody Award, and the first Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Gold Baton awarded in a decade. She also serves as a judge for the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. 

Aronson-Rath has led an ongoing charge for transparency in journalism – including throughthe FRONTLINE Transparency Project, an effort to open up the source material behind FRONTLINE’s reporting. She served as the sole public media representative on the Knight Commission on Trust, Media, and Democracy, a blue-ribbon panel that published a landmark report on the causes and consequences of growing distrust in democratic institutions, including the press. 

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

This program is a Penny Stamps Speaker Series Event, brought to you with support from Wallace House, Detroit Public Television and PBS Books

Domestic violent extremism: Threats, policies, and new approaches

Monday, March 29, 2021

4 p.m. ET

Register and receive link to watch

Free and open to the public. Join the conversation: #PolicyTalks

In the aftermath of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, a fierce debate has emerged in the media, academia, and public policy about the threat of domestic violent extremism in the United States and what solutions and new approaches are needed to confront this. Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence Javed Ali will host Janet Reitman from the New York Times Magazine and Heidi Beirich, Co-Founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, for an in-depth conversation on these and related issues. They will explore what key factors led to the insurrection on January 6, what policy gaps were exposed in the run-up to the events, and how different approaches are needed to tackle this threat before it worsens.

This event is a Policy Talks at the Ford School and Harry A and Margaret D Towsley Foundation Lecture Series event, co-sponsored by Wallace House.

An Ounce of Prevention: Confronting Concerns about the COVID-19 Vaccine

With Nicholas St. Fleur, Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow

Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

Thursday, March 25, 2021

11 a.m. ET

Register and receive link to watch

Watch the event on Zoom

Covid-19 has wreaked havoc on our nation for almost a year. Death tolls are hitting their highest daily peak. The advent of a vaccine presents the promise of a way out of this pandemic. However, concerns over the safety of the vaccine in conjunction with the historical reservations of People of Color regarding medical research and treatment have made for a tepid response to the availability of the vaccine. What are the best options to move forward? How do we address the concerns of those reluctant to take the vaccine? Join panelists Dr. Jessie Marshall, Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Dr. Najibah Rehman, Medical Director, Detroit Health Department and Nicholas St. Fleur, Knight-Wallace Reporting Fellow, University of Michigan for a Town Hall Meeting as we discuss the concerns and offer solutions.

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

This event is co-sponsored by Wallace House and the University of Michigan Detroit Center.

Journalists Jorge Carrasco, Dana Priest and Laurent Richard

Inside The Cartel Project: The Power of Collaborative Investigative Journalism

With Laurent Richard, Dana Priest, Jorge Carrasco. Moderated by Lynette Clemetson.

The fourth annual Eisendrath Symposium

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

12:30 p.m. ET

Watch the event

In 2012 Mexican journalist Regina Martinez was murdered in her home. She had been reporting on the links between drug cartels, public officials and thousands of individuals who had mysteriously disappeared. Eight years later, her investigations were published simultaneously around the world as The Cartel Project.

Forbidden Stories, a nonprofit newsroom created by Laurent Richard during his year as a Knight- Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, organized the project, secretly bringing together an international network of journalists dedicated to continuing the work of Martinez. Sixty reporters from 18 countries, followed her leads to expose a global network of Mexican drug cartels and their political connections around the world.

Join journalists Laurent Richard of Forbidden Stories, Dana Priest of The Washington Post and Jorge Carrasco of Proceso for a behind the scenes look at the global investigation and learn how collaborative journalism can keep alive the work of reporters who are silenced by threats, censorship or death.

Eric Foner and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Eric Foner: In Conversation

Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

Friday, January 29, 2021

8 p.m. ET

How to Watch

Pausing for a moment of post-inaugural reflection, following one of our nation’s most contentious presidential elections and it’s aftermath, this conversation brings together filmmaker, scholar, journalist and cultural critic, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. with prominent historian Eric Foner to contemplate how a divided nation comes together. The two will discuss Reconstruction, the all-too-brief period following the Civil War when the United States made its first effort to become an interracial democracy. The period saw the Constitution rewritten to incorporate the ideal of racial equality, but ended as a result of a violent backlash that erased many of the gains that had been made, with consequences we still confront as a nation. The program will also preview Gates’ most recent project, “The Black Church,” which will premiere on PBS in February.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. Professor Gates is an author and filmmaker whose work includes “Reconstruction: America after the Civil War,” and the related books, “Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow,” with Tonya Bolden, and “Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow.” Gates’ groundbreaking genealogy series, “Finding Your Roots,” is now in its sixth season on PBS.

Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University, is one of this country’s most prominent historians. Professor Foner’s publications have concentrated on the intersections of intellectual, political and social history, and the history of American race relations. His books include “Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877,” winner of the Bancroft Prize, Parkman Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award and “The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution.”

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

This Penny Stamps Speaker Series event and U-M Reverend Martin Luther King Junior Symposium event is part of the Democracy & Debate theme semester with support from Wallace House and the Ford School of Public Policy.

Majora Carter

Community as Corporation: Talent Retention in Low-Status America
with Majora Carter, Urban Revitalization Strategist

Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

Friday, November 6, 2020

Noon – 1:30 p.m. ET

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Watch on YouTube

Majora Carter, real estate developer, urban revitalization strategy consultant, MacArthur Fellow, and Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, will speak as part of the Real World Perspectives on Poverty Solutions series. The virtual lectures introduce the key issues regarding the causes and consequences of poverty. The series explores interdisciplinary, real-world poverty solutions from a wide variety of perspectives and encourages the formation of a broad community of learners to engage in these issues together.

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

This event is part of the Real World Perspectives on Poverty Solutions speaker series in partnership with the William Davidson Institute, Wallace House, the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Nicholas Kristof

Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope
Nicholas Kristof, New York Times Columnist and Author

Friday, October 30, 2020

Noon – 1:30 p.m. ET

Learn more

Watch on YouTube

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist and author, will speak as part of the Real World Perspectives on Poverty Solutions series. The virtual lectures introduce the key issues regarding the causes and consequences of poverty. The series explores interdisciplinary, real-world poverty solutions from a wide variety of perspectives and encourages the formation of a broad community of learners to engage in these issues together.

This event is part of the Real World Perspectives on Poverty Solutions speaker series in partnership with the William Davidson Institute, Wallace House, the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

María Elena Salinas and Bryan Llenas

María Elena Salinas and Bryan Llenas: Covering America at a Moment of Rupture

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

5 p.m. ET

Register for a Reminder

From partisan politics to diversity shortfalls in U.S. newsrooms, what does it mean for the reporters on the ground? Hear from two of America’s most prominent Latinx journalists on the value of representation and reporting in this hyper-partisan moment. Join our conversation with CBS News contributor, María Elena Salinas and Fox News national correspondent, Bryan Llenas.

The conversation will include introductions by Robert Yoon, Associate Director of Wallace House.

This is part of the Democracy & Debate Theme Semester Event Series.

Jane Coaston and Daniel Strauss

Covering the Campaign: A conversation with national political reporters

Monday, October 12, 2020

11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. ET

Learn more

Register for a reminder

Join us for a conversation with two senior political reporters, Jane Coaston of Vox and Daniel Strauss of The Guardian. Hear what it’s like to be a political reporter during an election season and what political and policy issues are at play in this presidential election. Paula Lantz, associate dean of the Ford School and James Hudak Professor of Health Policy will moderate the conversation.

This is part of the Policy Talks @ the Ford School event series and is co-sponsored by Wallace House.

Ken Burns and Isabel Wilkerson

In Conversation: Ken Burns and Isabel Wilkerson
Moderated by Lynette Clemetson

Friday, October 2, 2020

8 p.m. ET

Learn more

How to watch

Our lens on history powerfully influences how we envision and shape the future. Join two of our country’s most accomplished storytellers, documentary filmmaker, Ken Burns, and journalist and author, Isabel Wilkerson, as they discuss the complexities of the American narrative and how grappling with the past might lead us forward.

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House.

This is a Penny Stamps Speaker Series event and part of the Democracy & Debate Theme Semester with support from Wallace House and the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA).

Jason Beaubien “Planes and Pestilence: Emerging Epidemics in a Globalized World”

Jason Beaubien event page30th Graham Hovey Lecture with Jason Beaubien, Knight-Wallace Fellow ’07

The annual Graham Hovey Lecture honors 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 national conversation.

“Planes and Pestilence: Emerging Epidemics in a Globalized World”
September 10, 2015
Wallace House

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Watch the Lecture

Jason Beaubien, global health and development correspondent for NPR and Knight-Wallace alum, returned to Wallace House in September 2015 to deliver the 30th Graham Hovey Lecture. Drawing from his reporting on HIV/AIDS, MERS, SARS and the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Beaubien examined the rapid spread of disease in a globalized economy, anticipated the coming of an ambitious virus that “transmits easily, bides its time and its host before making that host sick, and manages to spread all over the world,” then asked if the world was ready for the next pandemic.

From our archives is his talk “Planes and Pestilence: Emerging Epidemics in a Globalized World.”

 

About the Speaker

Jason Beaubien is the global health and development correspondent for NPR, where he was part of a team of reporters that won a Peabody Award in 2015 for their extensive coverage of the West Africa Ebola outbreak. He reports on a range of health issues across the globe. He’s covered the plight of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, mass cataract surgeries in Ethiopia, abortion in El Salvador, poisonous gold mines in Nigeria, drug-resistant malaria in Myanmar and tuberculosis in Tajikistan.

Prior to becoming NPR’s global health and development correspondent in 2012, Beaubien spent four years based in Mexico City covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. He served as a foreign correspondent in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2002 to 2006 visiting 27 countries on the continent. Beaubien was one of the first journalists to report on the mass exodus of people out of Sudan’s Darfur region into Chad.

Beaubien earned a B.A. in English from San Francisco State University. As a Knight-Wallace Fellow at Michigan (2006-2007), he studied the intersection of the First and Third World.
 

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 national conversation. 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.

Wallace House Presents “Duterte’s Facebook-Fueled Rise to Power: Manipulating Public Opinion to Capture an Election”

Wallace House Presents Davey Alba of The New York Times and 2019 Livingston Award winner with Ceren Budak of the School of Information and College of Engineering 

Wednesday, January 29 | 4 – 5:30 p.m.
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Annenberg Auditorium
Free and open to the public

Watch the discussion here »

Join the Conversation

In 2018, journalist Davey Alba traveled to the Philippines to investigate Facebook’s breakneck proliferation in that country and President Rodrigo Duterte’s rise to power. She revealed how the politician’s incendiary style aligned perfectly with the tech company’s algorithms that reward entertaining, inflammatory content. From maligning opponents to espousing hardline policies to combat the drug trade, Duterte’s operatives created memes, propaganda and egregious libel that flourished on Facebook. Join Alba and Ceren Budak, associate professor, University of Michigan, for an examination of how demagogic political campaigns worldwide have weaponized the social media platform.

About the Speakers

Davey Alba is a reporter for The New York Times covering technology. Prior to joining the Times, she was a senior reporter at BuzzFeed News. She has been a staff writer at Wired and an editor at Popular Mechanics. Alba grew up in the Philippines and holds a B.A. degree from De La Salle University in Manila and an M.A. in science journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She received the 2019 Livingston Award for international reporting for her BuzzFeed investigation  “How Duterte Used Facebook to Fuel the Philippine Drug War“.

Ceren Budak is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information and the College of Engineering. Her research interests lie in the area of computational social science, a discipline at the intersection of computer science, statistics and the social sciences.  Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft Research New York. Budak received a Ph.D. from the computer science department at University of California, Santa Barbara and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Bilkent University in Turkey.

About the Moderator

Molly Kleinman is the program manager of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy program at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. She studies higher education policy, access to information, and faculty experiences with technology. Kleinman received a Ph.D. in higher education policy from the University of Michigan Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, a M.S. degree in information from the University of Michigan School of Information, and a B.A. degree in English and gender studies from Bryn Mawr College.

This Livingston Lecture event is co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program.

This event is produced with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Wallace House Presents “The 1619 Project: Examining the Legacy of Slavery and the Building of a Nation” 

“The 1619 Project: Examining the Legacy of Slavery and the Building of a Nation” with Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Times reporter in conversation with Rochelle Riley, Director of Arts and Culture at the Detroit Office of the Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship

January 28, 2020 | 6 p.m.

Rackham Auditorium
915 E Washington St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Free and open to the public.

About the Event

Journalism is often called the first draft of history. But journalism can also be used as a powerful tool for examining history.

Four hundred years ago, in August 1619, a ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia, establishing the system of slavery on which the United States was built.

With The 1619 Project, The New York Times is prompting conversation and debate about the legacy of slavery and its influence over American society and culture. From mass incarceration to traffic jams, the project seeks to reframe our understanding of American history and the fight to live up to our nation’s central promise.

Wallace House Presents the project’s creator, New York Times Magazine reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, in conversation with Rochelle Riley, longtime journalist and columnist.

1619 at Michigan

In coordination with the event, the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan sponsored five discussion sessions on the 1619 podcasts, one for each of the five episodes. Each listening session drew a larger audience than the previous and each episode drove lively, inquisitive conversations about critically important issues facing our nation.

This video, produced by Wallace House, includes some of the voices of students who attended the discussions, their perspectives on The 1619 Project and the continued relevance of the history of slavery.

About the Speaker

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a domestic correspondent for The New York Times Magazine focusing on racial injustice. She has written on federal failures to enforce the Fair Housing Act, the resegregation of American schools and policing in America. Her extensive reporting in both print and radio on the ways segregation in housing and schools is maintained through official action and policy has earned the National Magazine Award, a Peabody and a Polk Award. Her work designing “The 1619 Project” has been met with universal acclaim. The project was released in August 2019 to mark the 400th anniversary of American slavery and re-examines the role it plays in the history of the United States.

Hannah-Jones earned her bachelor’s in history and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame and her master’s in journalism and mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

About the Moderator

Rochelle Riley was a 2007-2008 Knight-Wallace Fellow and is the Director of Arts and Culture at the Office of Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship for the City of Detroit. For  nineteen years she was a columnist at the Detroit Free Press. Riley is author of “The Burden: African Americans and the Enduring Impact of Slavery” and the upcoming “That They Lived: Twenty African Americans Who Changed The World.”  She has won numerous national, state and local honors, including the 2017 Ida B. Wells Award from the National Association of Black Journalists for her outstanding efforts to make newsrooms and news coverage more accurately reflect the diversity of the communities they serve and the 2018 Detroit SPJ Lifetime Achievement Award alongside her longtime friend, Walter Middlebrook. She was a 2016 inductee into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame.

This is a 2020 Annual U-M Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium event.

Co-sponsors:
U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
U-M Center for Social Solutions
Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Documentary Screening “The Jewish Underground”


A documentary screening and conversation with Shai Gal and Jim Burnstein

November 4, 2019 | 2:30 p.m.

Annenberg Auditorium
735 S State St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Free and open to the public.

Refreshments will be provided. 
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In the early 1980s, a network of right-wing settlers plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock, the oldest existing Islamic monument situated on the most volatile site in the Middle East, the Temple Mount. Arrested in 1984 by the Israeli secret service Shin Bet, the conspirators were found to be responsible for several other attacks against Palestinians, including a series of car bomb attacks against West Bank mayors and schemes to blow-up civilian buses at rush-hour. Shai Gal’s documentary recounts the events surrounding their case and reveals the ties between the convicted plotters and leaders of the current Israeli government. Join us for a viewing and stay for a conversation with the documentary’s filmmaker, Shai Gal, and U-M’s director of screenwriting program, Jim Burnstein.

Watch the trailer  “The Jewish Underground”

 

About the Filmmaker:

Shai Gal is an Israeli filmmaker and investigative TV journalist. He was a correspondent for Channel 2 (Israel) and a 2012-2013 Knight-Wallace Fellow studying how extremists control the lives of others.

About the Moderator:

Jim Burnstein is a screenwriter, professor and director of the screenwriting program at the University of Michigan. He managed to beat the odds and make it as a successful Hollywood screenwriter without moving from his home in Plymouth, Michigan. Burnstein’s screen credits include “Renaissance Man,” the 1994 comedy directed by Penny Marshall and starring Danny DeVito; “D3: The Mighty Ducks” (1996-1997); “Ruffian,” the 2007 drama starring Sam Shepard co-written with Garrett Schiff of Los Angeles for ABC and ESPN; and “Love and Honor” (2013) starring Liam Hemsworth and Teresa Palmer, also written with Schiff.

The Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy is a co-sponsor of the event.