About the lecture
All About the Story: News, Power, Politics and The Washington Post is former Washington Post executive editor Len Downie’s autobiographical inside story of his eventful 44 years at the newspaper. He was a pioneering investigative reporter and an editor on the Watergate story. He covered the rise of Margaret Thatcher and the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana as a London correspondent. As The Post’s top editor, he made difficult decisions about publishing the Unabomber’s manifesto, the private lives of politicians including Bill Clinton, and stories involving national security. He directed coverage of 9/11, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the CIA’s secret war on terrorism. He relates all those experiences to the challenging relationship between the press and government in our democracy today.
About the speaker
Leonard Downie Jr., the Weil Family Professor at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, was executive editor of The Washington Post from 1991 to 2008. During his 44 years at The Post, he was also an investigative reporter, an editor of the newspaper’s Watergate stories, local news editor, foreign correspondent, national news editor and managing editor under Ben Bradlee from 1984 to 1991. He received his bachelor’s, master’s and honorary doctorate degrees from The Ohio State University. All About the Story: News, Power, Politics and The Washington Post, is his seventh book.