Associated Press Chief Elections Analyst to Deliver 2024 Roy Reed Lecture

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From left, Chad Day and Roy Reed

Chad Day, chief elections analyst for the Associated Press, will deliver the 2024 Roy Reed Lecture at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 3, at the Janelle Y. Hembree Alumni House. The event is free and open to the public.

The Roy Reed Lecture Series brings noteworthy media professionals to campus each year to discuss their careers and issues in their professions. The lecture was created by the School of Journalism and Strategic Media in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences to honor Roy Reed (1930-2017), a professor of journalism who reported for The New York Times from 1965 to 1978, and is part of the school's annual J-Days celebration.

Day is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a member of the AP's Decision Desk who writes about politics and elections. He rejoined the AP in February 2023 after several years at The Wall Street Journal, where he was the lead data reporter on the national politics team, covering presidential campaigns, elections, demographics and money in politics. He also specialized in building tools to help reporters tell deeper stories using data, particularly about the American electorate.

While at The Wall Street Journal, Day was part of team that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting after exposing federal conflicts of interest. The series revealed weaknesses in the federal government's ethics programs including that thousands of federal officials were allowed to own or trade stocks in companies actively lobbying their agencies.

During his previous stint at the AP, he was an election analyst on the Decision Team during the 2016 and 2018 campaign cycles and a reporter on the Washington investigative team, where he covered special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation and the 2016 presidential campaign.

Day earned a Bachelor of Journalism in print and digital news from the University of Missouri. He started his career at the Kansas City Star and reported for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette before moving to Washington.

About the Roy Reed Lecture Series: The Roy Reed Lecture Series is the featured event for the school's annual J-Days celebration. The series was created by friends of Reed when he retired from the journalism faculty. Roy Reed (1930-2017) was a reporter for The New York Times (1965-1978), where he wrote more than 1,300 bylined articles. He taught journalism at the U of A for 16 years.

About J-Days: The School of Journalism and Strategic Media hosts its annual J- Days celebration in the first week of April. The week includes a scholarship reception, the Roy Reed lecture series and other events. SJSM faculty also host journalists and media professionals as guest speakers throughout the week. Many J-Days events are planned in conjunction with the Lemke Journalism Alumni Society.