Athens, Ga. – An editor who is transforming investigative journalism will deliver this year’s McGill lecture at the University of Georgia on Wednesday, Oct. 20, in Room 171 of the Miller Learning Center. Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief of ProPublica, will speak on “Making Journalism Work in the Digital Age.” The lecture is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.
Steiger’s ProPublica is a non-profit, nonpartisan investigative-reporting team, based in New York. He also serves as chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit that advocates for press freedom around the globe.
From 1999 to 2007, Steiger was a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, serving as its chairman in his final year. He is a trustee of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation which funds efforts to enhance journalism and the functioning of American communities.
Steiger served as the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal from 1991 to 2007. During his tenure, members of the Journal’s newsroom staff were awarded 16 Pulitzer Prizes. In addition, a ProPublica reporter received a Pulitzer Prize in 2010.
Steiger worked for 15 years as a reporter, the Washington economics correspondent, and the business editor for the Los Angeles Times, and for 26 years as a reporter and editor for the Wall Street Journal. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University in 1964.
His many awards include the Columbia Journalism Award, the University of Missouri Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism, the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center, the Gerald Loeb Award for lifetime achievement from the John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, the Dean’s Medal for Distinguished Leadership from Brandeis University, the Fourth Estate Award from the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the Decade of Excellence Award from the World Leadership Forum in London, and the American Society of News Editors Leadership Award.
For three decades, the McGill Lecture has brought significant figures in journalism to the University of Georgia to help us honor Ralph McGill’s courage as an editor.
McGill, while editor and publisher of The Atlanta Constitution, was regarded as the “conscience of the South,” using the newspaper’s editorial pages to challenge segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. McGill was awarded a Pulitizer Prize in 1958 for “long, courageous and effective leadership.”
Established in 1978, this UGA annual lecture series addresses major issues impacting American journalism.
The McGill Lecture is funded by the McGill Lecture Endowment in the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Contributors include Gannett Foundation and Grady’s Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism.
Established in 1915, the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication offers undergraduate majors in advertising, broadcast news, magazines, newspapers, public relations, publication management and telecommunication arts. The college offers two graduate degrees, and is home to WNEG-TV, the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism and the Peabody Awards, internationally recognized as one of the most prestigious prizes for excellence in electronic media. For more information, see www.grady.uga.edu or follow Grady at twitter.com/ugagrady.