On Campus
Journalist Ellen Weiss to speak at Muskingum
Muskingum University will host guest speaker Ellen Weiss, vice president and Washington bureau chief of The E. W. Scripps Company, at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 7 in the University’s Boyd Science Center.
Weiss’ presentation, “We’re Journalists, Not the Enemy,” will focus on the responsibilities of journalism, how to engage journalists and the overall state of journalism today. The presentation is free and open to the public.
“Within the context of today’s political climate, there has never been a more important time for us to have a dialogue with journalists and clearly understand the role they play in supporting a healthy democracy,” said Muskingum University Associate Professor of Digital Media Design Dr. Tom German. “Ellen and I met over the summer in Washington D.C. She’s extremely engaging and I’m thrilled she is coming to campus to share her thoughts and experience with our students and community.”
The presentation is made possible by a grant provided by the Scripps Howard Foundation. As part of the grant, Dr. German was one of six participants chosen from a group of national applicants to spend two weeks of the summer in residence with a news operation. German was assigned to observe the Scripps Washington Bureau’s podcasting, investigative and digital video teams in Washington D.C. The grant also included funding for Weiss to visit campus and meet with students.
In her role with The E. W. Scripps Company, a television, radio and digital media company, Weiss oversees a multimedia national investigative team. She is the recipient of four Peabody Awards, most recently in 2015 in recognition of the “Under the Radar” investigative series, which exposed problems when convicted military sex offenders returned to civilian life. In 2014, Weiss launched DecodeDC, a weekly podcast and multimedia blog focused on explaining Washington DC’s people, culture, policies and politics.
Prior to joining The E. W. Scripps Company in 2013, Weiss served as executive editor for The Center for Public Integrity, and before that as National Public Radio’s (NPR) senior vice president of news, where she oversaw a global expansion of NPR news and the creation of an investigative unit and the digital integration of the newsroom. In this role, she led NPR’s worldwide journalism operations, including 17 domestic and 17 foreign bureaus, more than 400 staff members and more than 40 hours of weekly news programming.
Weiss began working with NPR in 1982 and served in a variety of roles before her departure in 2011, including executive producer of the daily NPR newsmagazine All Things Considered and senior editor of the national desk.
She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in international relations from Smith College, in Northampton, MA. She and her family live in Washington D.C.
For more information about the event, call the Muskingum University Department of Communication, Media, and Theatre at 740-826-6120.
