Washington Post White House Reporter to Speak at U of A as Part of Journalism Days Events

The Washington Post

Josh Dawsey

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Josh Dawsey, White House correspondent for the Washington Post, will speak about media coverage of the White House at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 3 at the Janelle Y. Hembree Alumni House on the University of Arkansas campus.

Dawsey is the 2019 Roy Reed Lecture speaker, sponsored by the School of Journalism and Strategic Media, the featured event for the school's annual Journalism Days events. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Dawsey, 28, was named among the Forbes' 30 under 30 in media who are defining and driving the world of news and content.

The award-winning journalist scooped multiple White House stories that received worldwide coverage. Among his awards is the 2018 White House Correspondents' Association Award for deadline news reporting.

In years past, the speaker in the lecture series had always been journalists who knew Roy Reed personally, said Gerald Jordan, associate professor of Journalism at the U of A. Reed, a New York Times writer and a professor of journalism at the U of A, died last year.

"I'm happy to see the torch passed to a new generation, and I'm supremely confident that Roy would have been equally elated," Jordan said. "Roy insisted that the speakers be 'good reporters' and 'good writers,' a measure that he set during his New York Times days as a national and foreign correspondent. Our speaker on this occasion fills those requirements with excellence."

Rob Wells, an assistant professor of journalism at the U of A, first met Dawsey in 2012. Dawsey was a student in Wells' business reporting class at the University of South Carolina.

"Josh is a phenomenal reporter who has quickly established himself as a force on the national political scene," Wells said. "I think students will enjoy learning about his journey from student media to covering New York politics to writing about the extraordinary events in the Trump White House."

Dawsey plans to speak about the dynamics and dysfunction of covering the current White House, how he deals with the hostility and attacks on the press, and how the White House press corps competes and then cooperates in the face of this external threat.

The Roy Reed Lecture Series was created by the friends of Reed on the occasion of his retirement from the journalism faculty. Reed was a reporter for the New York Times from 1965 to 1978. He also taught journalism for 16 years at the U of A, where he stressed not only the importance of telling stories accurately but of telling them well, with special consideration for language.