Margaret Sullivan, the media columnist for the Washington Post, will join the faculty of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy to teach a course in the spring semester.
Sullivan, the former public editor of the New York Times and editor of the Buffalo News, will teach News as a Moral Battleground, the Center’s signature ethics course.
“I’m thrilled to have Margaret teach this course at such a critical time for American journalism,” said Bill Adair, director of the DeWitt Wallace Center. “She is an important voice in the media who understands the importance of local news and accountability reporting.”
The Center, part of the Sanford School of Public Policy, is Duke’s hub for journalism education.
Sullivan will continue to write her Post columns, which focus on journalism ethics, press rights and the intersection of politics and the news media.
“With the decline in public trust in the media, the need for accountability journalism, and new issues surrounding privacy and digital security, there’s going to be plenty to discuss with Duke students — and I can’t wait to get to know them,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan has a degree in English Literature from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She was a member of the Pulitzer Prize board from 2011 to 2012, and was twice elected as a director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, where she led the First Amendment committee. She has taught in the graduate schools of journalism at Columbia University and the City University of New York.
She is the author of “Ghosting the News: Local Journalism and the Crisis of American Democracy,” to be published in July.