Livingston Awards winners Lindsey Smith and Kate Wells speak at 2019 IRE Houston
June 14 | 3:45 p.m.
Texas F
2019 IRE Houston
Meet the 2019 winners of the Livingston Awards for Young Journalists. Michigan Radio and NPR’s podcast “Believed” moved beyond the headlines for an intimate look at how a detective, prosecutor and army of survivors brought down former U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor and serial sex offender, Larry Nassar. Learn how Kate Wells and Lindsey Smith investigated Nassar’s assaults through the voices and experiences of his victims and their families to capture listeners and hit the number one spot on the iTunes chart.
Panelists:
Lindsey Smith, 2019 Livingston Award winner for local reporting. Michigan Radio’s Investigative Reporter. Mom of two girls. Lover of The Great Lakes. Lindsey Smith teamed up with Kate Wells on “Believed,” a podcast exploring how former sports doctor Larry Nassar got away with child sexual abuse for decades. The podcast was awarded a Livingston Award and Peabody, two firsts for the station. Smith’s 2015 documentary, “Not Safe to Drink,” led Michigan Radio’s award-winning coverage of the Flint water crisis.
Kate Wells, 2019 Livingston Award winner for local reporting. Kate’s a reporter at Michigan Radio and the co-host of the Livingston Award-winning NPR podcast, Believed. @KateLouiseWells
2019 Livingston Award winners (counter-clockwise from top right): Kate Wells, Lindsey Smith, Chris Outcalt, Davey Alba and Rob Hiaasen, recipient of the Richard M. Clurman Award
Stories about the women who brought down U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, the murder of a gang leader at the highest security prison in the U.S., and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s Facebook-fueled rise to power won the Livingston Awards today. The $10,000 prizes honor outstanding achievement in local, national and international reporting and recognize the best journalism by professionals under age 35 across of all platforms, including text, visual and audio storytelling.
The Livingston Awards also honored the late Rob Hiaasen of the Capital Gazette with the Richard M. Clurman Award for mentoring. The $5,000 prize is given each year to an experienced journalist who has played an active role in guiding and nurturing the careers of young reporters. The prize is named for the late Richard M. Clurman, former chief of correspondents for Time-Life News Service and architect of the Livingston Awards.
Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the University of Michigan to support the vital role of a free and independent press, the awards bolster the work of young reporters, create the next generation of journalism leaders and mentors, and advance civic engagement around powerful storytelling. Other sponsors include the Indian Trial Charitable Foundation, the Mollie Parnis Livingston Foundation, Christiane Amanpour, and Dr. Gil Omenn and Martha Darling.
Livingston Awards national judges Anna Quindlen, author, Ken Auletta of The New Yorker and Bret Stephens of The New York Times, and Livingston Awards regional judge, Stephen Henderson of WDET (Detroit) introduced the winners today at a luncheon in New York City.
“This year’s winners represent exceptional reporting and storytelling, illuminating both personal journeys and systemic failings,” says Livingston Awards Director Lynette Clemetson. “Whether through ubiquitous social platforms, elite athletics or prison gangs, these stories expand public understanding of how powerful networks are manipulated and exploited.”
The 2019 winners for work published in 2018 are:
Local Reporting
Lindsey Smith and Kate Wells of Michigan Radio and NPR for the podcast series “Believed,” a haunting and multifaceted account of U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar’s belated arrest and an intimate look at how an army of women – a detective, a prosecutor and survivors – brought down the serial sex offender.
“Big stories wind up told in broad strokes. Instead of amplifying their power, that sometimes makes them less accessible as human drama. Lindsey Smith and Kate Wells of Michigan Radio decided to go the other way, which is why their pieces on Larry Nassar grabbed me by the throat,” says Anna Quindlen. “They illuminate, not the judicial process, but the people: the uber-mom who won’t back down from a fight, the father who never suspected and whose torment suffuses his voice, the investigators and, of course, the survivors. These reporters use the small details of a big story to give it a human scale.”
National Reporting
Chris Outcalt of The Atavist Magazine for “Murder at the Alcatraz of the Rockies,” a riveting narrative of a prison murder committed under the gaze of security cameras, a rookie FBI agent and the inner workings of the Mexican Mafia, a criminal prison organization spawned in California juvenile facilities in the 1950s.
“The best journalism doesn’t always cover the best-known stories. Chris Outcalt’s extraordinary reporting introduces readers to sides of American life few people will ever see: life within the country’s most secure prison, an infamous gang’s rules of violence and honor, and the decade-long investigation and trial of a killing that is nothing like the open-and-shut case it first appears to be,” says Bret Stephens. “Outcalt’s writing grips the reader’s attention from the first sentence to the last and doesn’t waste a word. It reminds us at every turn of the humanity of our most dangerous felons, the complexity of their motives, and the difficulty of ascertaining truth and doing justice.”
International Reporting
Davey Alba of Buzzfeed News for “How Duterte Used Facebook to Fuel the Philippine Drug War,” a sweeping investigation of Facebook’s breakneck proliferation in the Philippines and how President Rodrigo Duterte’s regime weaponized the social media platform to spread fake news, imprison dissenters and murder innocent Filipinos.
“Davey Alba’s reporting brings home the immense power of digital platforms. We see how Facebook created the ultimate walled garden in the Philippines by subsidizing the Internet, thus making Facebook synonymous not just with getting online but as the primary source of news,” says Ken Auletta. “By relying on algorithms rather than humans to police news and content, Facebook ignored how fake news went viral and was used by a corrupt government to punish opponents, sometimes with death. Rather than hire editors to police false news, Facebook engineers hubristically believed their algorithms would do the job, thus saving money. This is what they’ve done around the world, with sometimes bloody consequences.”
Mentoring Award
The late Rob Hiaasen was honored with the Richard M. Clurman Award for his newsroom commitment to counseling, nurturing and inspiring young journalists. Hiaasen was the assistant editor and columnist at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland and a lecturer at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism. In June 2018, he was killed in a mass shooting at the Capital Gazette offices, along with Gerald Fischman, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters, in the deadliest attack on journalists in the United States on record. In a video tribute at the luncheon, former colleagues spoke about Hiaasen’s influence on their writing, approach to storytelling and his encouragement of young journalists.
In addition to Quindlen, Stephens and Auletta, the Livingston national judging panel includes Christiane Amanpour of CNNi and PBS; Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune; Dean Baquet of The New York Times; John Harris of Politico; María Elena Salinas, independent journalist and producer; and Kara Swisher of Recode.
About the Livingston Awards:
The Livingston Awards for Young Journalists are the most prestigious honor for professional journalists under the age of 35 and are the largest all-media, general reporting prizes in American journalism. Entries from print, online, visual and audio storytelling are judged against one another, as technology blurs distinctions between traditional platforms. The $10,000 prizes are awarded annually for local, national and international reporting. The Livingston Awards are a program of Wallace House at the University of Michigan, home to the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Wallace House Presents event series. Learn more at wallacehouse.umich.edu/Livingston-awards.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit: knightfoundation.org.
“Beyond the Wall:
The Human Toll of Border Crossings”
January 31, 2018 | 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Annenberg Auditorium
Free and open to the public Reception with speakers following the event. Watch the discussion »
A Conversation with Brooke Jarvis, Ann Lin and Jason De León
In the public debate over immigration policy, the mortal toll of border crossings are too often faceless statistics. A Livingston Award-winning journalist, a MacArthur Genius and anthropologist, and a U-M public policy expert will share the stories and findings behind immigration statistics and discuss the complexities, ramifications and human lives that are involved in clandestine migration.
About the Speakers
Brooke Jarvis is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine and The California Sunday Magazine. Her work has been anthologized in “The Best American Science and Nature Writing” and her story about working for a year at a remote leper colony in Hawaii was included in the collection “Love and Ruin.” Jarvis received the 2017 Livingston Award for national reporting for her feature story “Unclaimed,” the story of an anonymous man, an undocumented immigrant kept alive by machines for nearly 17 years in a San Diego hospital, and the networks of immigrant families that search for their missing loved ones.
Jason De León is an associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and director of the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP). His research interests include theories of violence, materiality, death and mourning, Latin American migration, crime and forensic analyses, and archaeology of the contemporary. De León was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2017.
About the Moderator
Ann Lin is Associate Professor of Public Policy in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She teaches courses on public policy implementation, gender and politics, qualitative research methods and immigration. Lin is currently studying potential immigration policies and the beliefs of American immigrants with a special focus on Arab Americans.
This Livingston Lecture event is co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and the International Policy Center.
This Livingston Lecture event is produced with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Is kneeling during the national anthem a show of disrespect or a display of patriotism? Is extending a welcome to immigrants and refugees central to American ideals or a threat to them? Is the Confederate flag a symbol of heritage or racism? The social, cultural and political fabric of the country is increasingly torn by uncivil debates about the essence of American values. Lydia Polgreen, editor-in-chief of HuffPost and 2009 Livingston Award winner, will discuss the vital role of journalism and a free press in a thriving democracy and its responsibility in the current populist moment.
Fresh off the Listen to America road trip, a 25-city bus tour to engage with people and communities that feel left out of dominant national narratives, Polgreen will address the legacy and current relevance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and engage the audience in a conversation about voice, power and participation in civil society.
About the Speaker
Polgreen was named editor-in-chief of HuffPost in December 2016 after spending nearly 15 years at The New York Times. There she led an initiative to expand its audience outside the United States, with an initial focus on Latin America. Previously, she was Deputy International Editor, South Africa bureau chief, correspondent for the New Delhi bureau and chief of the West Africa bureau. Before joining The Times, Polgreen was a reporter in Florida and New York state. She began her career as assistant editor and business manager for The Washington (D.C.) Monthly.
Polgreen was a 2006 recipient of the George Polk Award for foreign reporting. She received the 2009 Livingston Award for international reporting for her series, “The Spoils,” an account of how mineral wealth brought misery and exploitation to much of Africa. In 2007, she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
For questions about the event email: WallaceHouseEvents@umich.edu
This is a 2018 Annual U-M Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium event.
Co-sponsored by the Department of History, Department of American Culture and Department of English Language and Literature.
Wallace House campus events include public engagements with Lydia Polgreen, Brooke Jarvis, Joshua Johnson and Bret Stephens
Anyone who has spent time in Wallace House knows that, as an organization that supports the work of journalists, we are also defenders of free speech. It is a fundamental belief evidenced in the irreverent caricatures of politicians that ring our living room and the wide array of provocative books and periodicals that fill our library. It is a proclamation painted in the washroom just off the foyer, in black block letters, a central tenet impossible to ignore – even in the smallest room in the house: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
That sentence, penned by the English writer Evelyn Beatrice Hall in a 1906 biography of the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, is commonly referenced in defense of free speech. For journalists, it serves as a dramatic restatement of basic rights laid out in the First Amendment, that “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
At a time when that foundational right is being challenged and reexamined, it is all the more important to articulate its significance. Wallace House is working to do just that, through public events aimed at highlighting the vital role of journalism to document, interpret, analyze and investigate the forces shaping society.
By moving journalism away from devices and distractions and into public spaces, we aim to close the gap between an increasingly indifferent public and the reporters taking stock of our times. In this era of echo chambers, we feel called to actively foster civil discourse across profound gulfs of mistrust and cynicism.
For journalists, a free press is inextricably bound to the broader principle of freedom of speech, a principal that is most critical to defend when it is inconvenient and difficult to stomach. Our winter 2018 events will tackle that complexity head on, with prominent speakers from NPR, The New York Times and HuffPost.
We’ll encourage audiences to wrestle with how the American ideal accommodates and protects both Colin Kaepernick and Richard Spencer. We’ll examine the continuum from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s long arc of the universe to hashtag revolutions and crowd-sourced justice. And we’ll elevate important stories subsumed by fast-paced news cycles, from the unseen tragedies of border crossings to the global implications of China’s expanding soft power.
Such tough discussions are regular fodder for the journalists who come through the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards, the truth-seekers and tellers who think, work and interact within our Wallace House walls. It’s pressing now that we move those conversations out into the open, to forums that prompt wider-reaching debate. Free speech and a free press, after all, are rights too precious to take for granted.
We hope you will mark these events on your calendar, share them with friends and join us.
3/20/18 | “China’s Soft Power” The Eisendrath Symposium on International News
Information on times, venues and speaker details can be found on our event pages.
Lynette Clemetson is Director of Wallace House, home of the Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists and the Livingston Awards at the University of Michigan. She is a 2010 Knight-Wallace Fellow.
Martha Darling and Gil Omenn at the Livingston Awards luncheon
University of Michigan professor Dr. Gil Omenn and his wife Martha Darling contribute to a wide range of philanthropic causes, from the fine arts to medical research to environmental conservation. This year they added Wallace House to the important institutions they support. Omenn and Darling pledged $500,000 to the Livingston Awards, a prestigious annual prize which recognizes outstanding local, national and international reporting by journalists under the age of 35.
Omenn and Darling presented their gift at the Livingston Awards luncheon on June 6 in New York City. With impassioned remarks before the 200 guests gathered for the annual event, the couple expressed admiration for the work of the journalists honored and spoke with urgency about the need to publicly support the press.
“Journalism is a bedrock activity of our society, especially in the current environment,” said Omenn in an interview this month. “This is a field where young people can make a big impact. We think it’s important, it’s underinvested, and we’re delighted to participate.”
Mollie Parnis LIvingston created the awards in 1981 in memory of her son, Robert, publisher of More, a journalism review. For more than 30 years, her family foundation offered sole support to the program, which is administered by Wallace House at the University of Michigan. The Omenn-Darling gift will go toward an endowment to secure the program into the future. They join the Indian Trail Charitable Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Christiane Amanpour, and the University of Michigan among the program’s major supporters.
“This is an especially significant time to recognize and support the vital role journalism plays in our democracy,” says Lynette Clemetson, director of the Livingston Awards. “Young reporters are producing strong work across a range of storytelling forms, increasing public understanding, accountability, empathy and action around important issues. Generous gifts like this not only provide recognition to individual journalists, they also affirm the larger mission of journalism in society. We are deeply grateful.”
Omenn, director of the university’s Center for Computational Medicine & Bioinformatics and the Proteomics Alliance for Cancer Research, served as executive vice president for medical affairs and as chief executive officer of the University of Michigan Health System from 1997 to 2002. He was dean of the School of Public Health, and professor of medicine and environmental health at the University of Washington, Seattle, from 1982 to 1997. He was also associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget in the Carter administration.
A noted conservationist, Darling is a member of the National Wildlife Federation’s President’s Leadership Council, which honored her contributions with its achievement award last year. Retired from a senior management position at Boeing, she has consulted on education policy for the National Academy of Sciences, and has chaired the boards of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. She is also a member of the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars.
Omenn was first introduced to Wallace House and the Knight-Wallace Fellowships by former director Charles Eisendrath, who retired in 2016. Over the years Omenn particularly enjoyed his occasional visits to Wallace House to hear from guest speakers, as well as the opportunity to meet with Fellows currently in residence. Last year, Wallace House director Lynette Clemetson launched The Livingston Lectures, public events featuring Livingston winners, an initiative Omenn singled out for praise. Giving students a chance to interact with the winners demonstrates the value of having the awards’ “home base” on campus, he added.
“This is in the sweet spot for the University of Michigan — we’re all about new knowledge and developing young people,” says Omenn.
Omenn and Darling maintain other connections to the journalism world. Omenn serves on the board of directors of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative news organization based in Washington, D.C. He noted that CPI’s first Pulitzer Prize, in 2014, went to a 28-year-old reporter examining the systemic disenfranchisement of Appalachian coal miners with black lung disease — two-time Livingston Award finalist Chris Hamby.
And Darling is a relative of Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling, who won two Pulitzer Prizes for political cartooning — in 1923 and 1942. He went on to become founder of the National Wildlife Federation and was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt to head the U.S. Biological Survey, a forerunner to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Support for the Livingston Awards bolsters the work of reporters under the age of 35, creates the next generation of journalism leaders and advances civic engagement around powerful storytelling. Go to our donate page for more on how to support the essential work of journalists.
From the human toll of border crossings to Assad’s authorization of mass killings: Exploring Livingston Award winning stories with the Knight Foundation
June 22, 2017 | 5 – 6 p.m.
Grand Canyon 9-10, first floor
JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa
5350 East Marriott Drive
Phoenix, Arizona
IRE conference attendees can meet the 2017 Livingston Award winners and learn how these reporters transformed their story ideas into award-winning investigations. From tracking down sources to crafting narratives, they will examine ways to dig deeper and tell powerful stories.
Speakers:
Panelist: Brooke Jarvis, 2017 Livingston Award winner for “Unclaimed,” from The California Sunday Magazine, an investigative narrative about an unidentified migrant bed-bound in a San Diego hospital for 16 years and the networks of immigrant families searching for their missing loved ones.
Panelist: Ben Taub, 2017 Livingston Award winner for “The Assad Files,” from The New Yorker, an investigative feature exposing a complex, dangerous operation to capture top-secret documents that link mass torture and killings in Syria to the highest levels of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime..
Moderator: Stella Chavez, Livingston Awards judge and 2007 Livingston winner, for “Yolanda’s Crossing,” an investigation into a sexually-abused Mexican girl abducted and smuggled across the U.S. border.
This event is presented by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
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.
2017 Livingston Award Winners: Claire Galofaro, Brooke Jarvis, Ben Taub and the late Gwen Ifill
Stories about economic despair in Appalachia, the human toll of border crossings, and President Bashar al-Assad’s authorization of mass murder in Syria won the Livingston Awards today. The $10,000 prizes for journalists under the age of 35 are the largest all-media, general-reporting prizes in the country.
The Livingston Awards also honored the late Gwen Ifill with the Richard M. Clurman Award for on-the-job mentoring. The $5,000 prize named for the late Richard M. Clurman, former chief of correspondents for Time-Life Service and architect of the Livingston Awards.
Livingston judges María Elena Salinas of Univision News, Kara Swisher of Recode and Code Conference and Bret Stephens of The New York Times introduced the winners today at a luncheon in New York City. Former Livingston judge and winner, Michele Norris presented the Richard M. Clurman Award.
“These winners underscore the vital work and absolute necessity of journalism in documenting the human experience,” says Livingston Awards Director Lynette Clemetson. “Through meticulous reporting and exceptional storytelling these reporters crafted richly detailed, affecting narratives that added depth, nuance and new understanding to often oversimplified issues.”
The 2017 winners for work published in 2016 are:
Local Reporting
Claire Galofaro, 34, of The Associated Press, for the series “Surviving Appalachia,” a devastating portrait of a rural landscape on the brink of extinction. Galofaro examines the rise of Donald Trump, captures the despair of hundreds of people betrayed by a crooked lawyer’s disability fraud scheme and documents a day in a small West Virginia city where 28 people overdose in a four-hour period.
“The lesson I learned most vividly from reporting these stories is that a generally-improving American economy means nothing to people who look out their window and see only devastation and decay,” says Galofaro. “There is a consequence of forsaking these blue collar places.”
National Reporting
Brooke Jarvis, 32, of The California Sunday Magazine, for “Unclaimed,” an investigative narrative about an unidentified migrant bed-bound in a San Diego hospital for 16 years and the networks of immigrant families searching for their missing loved ones.
“We talk constantly about immigration and immigration reform without enough understanding of the human lives that are involved,” says Jarvis. “I think the more we can empathize with people, instead of thinking of them a abstractions, the better off we all are.”
International Reporting
Ben Taub, 25, of The New Yorker, for “The Assad Files,” an investigation revealing the workings of an independent agency and their efforts to capture and smuggle government documents that link mass torture and killings in Syria to the highest levels of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“Everyone knew that the Assad regime was committing an astonishing array of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” says Taub. “But for me, what mattered was showing not only that these crimes were taking place but also that they can be traced back to orders that Assad had signed – that his criminal culpability is not in question. If international law is credibly applied in Syria, this is the body of evidence that will be used against Assad in court.”
On-the-Job Mentoring
The late Gwen Ifill was honored with the Richard M. Clurman Award for her commitment to counseling, nurturing and inspiring young journalists. Ifill served as co-anchor and managing editor of “PBS NewsHour and moderator and managing editor of “Washington Week” until her death in November 2016. Her family will donate the prize money to the Gwen Ifill Fund for Journalism Excellence established by WETA, her public broadcasting home.
“Gwen provided counsel and guidance to hundreds of journalists in a way that was not available to her as a young journalist,” says Rochelle Riley, columnist for the Detroit Free Press. “She rose to the top of her profession, all with one hand reached behind her back to help others rise.”
Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the University of Michigan to support the vital role of a free and independent press, the awards bolster the work of young reporters, create the next generation of journalism leaders and advance civic engagement around powerful storytelling.
The Livingston Lectures present journalists Lisa Gartner, Michael LaForgia, and Nathaniel Lash and education policy expert Tabbye Chavous for a panel discussion on “Failure Factories,” the Tampa Bay Times investigative series about what happened after the Pinellas County School Board voted in 2007 to abandon racial integration in favor of a neighborhood school system, the policy changes prompted by the reports and the current shape of racial segregation in schools across the county.
In 2007 the Pinellas County School Board abandoned integration, promising schools in poor, black neighborhoods more money, staff and resources. None of those were delivered. In 2015 Tampa Bay Times’ reporters Lisa Gartner, Michael LaForgia and Nathaniel Lash analyzed data from seven years of school disciplinary records and found a precipitous decline in student performance as well as alarming rates of violence in five elementary schools following the 2007 decision. Their investigative series received attention from the U.S. education Secretary and led to several reforms
Lisa Gartner is a writer on the enterprise team at the Tampa Bay Times. In 2016, she and Times reporters Cara Fitzpatrick and Michael LaForgia won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting for “Failure Factories.” The series also won the Livingston Award, the Polk Award for Education Reporting, the Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Journalism and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Medal, among other honors. Gartner joined the Times in 2013. She grew up in Wellington, FL, and attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. After graduating in 2010, she joined The Washington Examiner to report on education in the D.C. metro area. At the Times, Gartner covered Pinellas County Schools and higher education.
Michael LaForgia is investigations editor at the Tampa Bay Times. He has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting – in 2014 for exposing problems in a Hillsborough County homeless program and in 2016 for the “Failure Factories” series, for which he also won a Livingston Award. He joined the Times in 2012.
Nathaniel Lash joined the Tampa Bay Times in 2015 as an intern and became a data reporter. He was a fellow at The Center for Investigative Reporting, an intern at Newsday and a news applications developer at The Wall Street Journal. A Livingston Award winner, Lash graduated from the University of Urbana-Champaign with a degree in news-editorial journalism.
Tabbye M. Chavous is the director of the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) and a Professor of Education and Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. Her expertise and research activities include social identity development among black adolescents and young adults; and diversity and multicultural climates in secondary and higher education settings and implications for students’ academic, social, and psychological adjustment.
Moderated by Brian Jacob, Walter H.Annenberg professor Education Policy, professor of economics and co-director of the Education Policy Initiative and Youth Policy Lab.
This is co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the Education Policy Initiative and the School of Education.
A panel of national journalists and a political science expert will offer analysis about the presidential election and the tempestuous aftermath during a public discussion at the University of Michigan.
The focus will be on criticism of the media, what journalists, pollsters and political experts missed, and the path forward in covering an unprecedented presidency and divided country.
Lynette Clemetson, director of Wallace House at U-M, said it is important to hear from reporters who have covered the presidential election from the beginning.
“It is even more important to turn our attention to what comes next,” Clemetson said. “We are entering uncharted waters. As much as news organizations need to to examine their coverage priorities, news consumers need to become astute in assessing the flood of information coming at them and the role and function of a free press in society.”
The panel includes alumni of the U-M Knight-Wallace Fellowships for Journalists who covered the campaign and will report on the transition, as well as a former Livingston Awards winner and a U-M expert who follows elections and voting behavior.
Panelists:
● Craig Gilbert is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Washington bureau chief and author of “The Wisconsin Voter” political blog. He has covered every presidential campaign since 1988 and has written extensively about the electoral battle for the swing states of the industrial Midwest. Gilbert was a 2010 Knight-Wallace Fellow.
● Vincent Hutchings, U-M professor of political science, is an expert on public opinion, elections and voting behavior. He studies demographic change and its effect on voting behavior and how campaign communications are designed to appeal to various group identities.
● Tracy Jan is a national political reporter who covered the campaign for The Boston Globe. She focused primarily on the GOP, including Christian evangelicals, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. This month, she joins The Washington Post to develop a new beat on the intersection of race and the American economy. Jan was a 2015 Knight-Wallace Fellow.
● Laura Meckler is a staff writer with The Wall Street Journal where she covered the Democratic presidential primary and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. She has reported on presidential politics, the White House, changing American demographics, immigration and health care. In 1999, she received a Livingston Award for national reporting.
● Katie Zezima is a political reporter for The Washington Post where she covered the Obama White House years. She chronicled the campaigns of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Texas Senator Ted Cruz from start to finish and before switching to enterprise reporting on social issues riling the election in its final months. Zezima was a 2012 Knight-Wallace Fellow.
Jon Morgan, an editor in the Washington bureau of Bloomberg News since 2010, will serve as moderator. He was a 2001 Knight-Wallace Fellow.
The event is being presented by Wallace House and the College of Literature, Science and the Arts.
