Event

A dinner and intimate conversation with Margaret Sullivan, former public editor of the New York Times and award-winning columnist and author. From the campus protests to the chaotic events of the Harris-Trump presidential race, news organizations are struggling to define the stakes and tell the stories of this unprecedented election year. Sullivan will take you behind the scenes of two papers of record, the New York Times and the Washington Post, answering your questions and sharing her experiences reporting the news in a crowded and rapidly evolving media environment.

This special evening, hosted by the Maroon and co-sponsored by the Program for Public Discourse and the Chicago Center on Democracy, is an opportunity for you to discuss the election and its consequences with an award-winning columnist and media critic.

Sullivan served as public editor of the New York Times from 2012 to 2016, and as media columnist for the Washington Postduring the 2016 and 2020 elections and their aftermaths, including the violent turmoil of January. 6, 2021. She is executive director of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia Journalism School, a columnist for The Guardian US, and the author of two books, Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy(2020) and Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life (2022). She was the first woman editor of her hometown daily paper, The Buffalo News, where she started her career as a summer intern. In reviewing Newsroom Confidential for the New York Times,New Yorker writer Steve Coll wrote, “Sullivan remains the critic American journalism requires, a veteran practitioner with street cred, still in touch with the ‘unaccountable joy’ of reporting and writing that continues to draw talented young people to the craft.”

This event invites undergraduate students only.