Berry, Stephen – The University of Iowa
Stephen Berry, founder and interim executive director- editor The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism; associate professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, The University of Iowa
Berry, a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter, specializes in investigative reporting. His book, Watchdog Journalism: The Art of Investigative Reporting [Oxford University Press], was released in July 2008. He is co-founder and the interim executive director-editor of The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism, a non-profit organization that publishes the online news site, IowaWatch.org. The Iowa Center is dedicated to collaborating with other news organizations to produce in-depth explanatory and investigative projects on serious public affairs issues confronting Iowans. Before entering academia in 2003, Berry was a journalist for 33 years, having worked last at the Los Angeles Times. While at The Orlando Sentinel, he and a colleague won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. His projects have examined race relations, the criminal justice system, police abuse of power, school district merger, medical malpractice, stock-car racing safety, guns, government and illegal drugs. More recently he has published “Reclaiming Objectivity” and “CBS News Lets the Pentagon Taint its News Process” in Nieman Reports.
Freivogel, William – Southern Illinois University Carbondale
William Freivogel, College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
William Freivogel is the director of the School of Journalism and holds a law degree from Washington University. His journalism career spans more than 30 years, during which he won several awards for investigative and civil rights stories. He was a member of the Post-Dispatch’s Washington bureau for 12 years, where he served as assistant bureau chief, focused on the Supreme Court and reported on such historic events as the assassination attempt on President Reagan.
Freivogel’s editorials on former Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Constitution made him a finalist in the 2002 Pulitzer Prize competition. During his career, Freivogel shared the Investigative Reporters and Editors award and National Press Club’s Washington correspondence award for stories on defense fraud at General Dynamics Corp. He also won a Washington correspondence award for reporting on dioxin contamination in Missouri and political machinations within the Environmental Protection Agency.
Freivogel won three Connie Rosenbaum awards in the 1970s for stories that reformed the St. Louis bail bond system and cleaned up a corrupt suburban police department after a suspect was killed in police custody . He joined Southern Illinois University in 2006.
Hall, Andy – Wisconsin Center For Investigative Journalism
Andy Hall, founder, executive director of Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism
Hall is founder and executive director of the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. The nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, launched two years ago, examines government integrity and quality-of-life issues and has become a model for producing local investigative journalism. The Center collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television, the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication, and mainstream and ethnic news media. From 1991 to 2006, Hall was investigative reporter at the Wisconsin State Journal, and was the newspaper’s K-12 education reporter from 2006 to 2009. A former Investigative Reporters and Editors board member, he also worked from 1982 to 1990 at The Arizona Republic, where he helped break the “Keating Five” scandal. Hall has received more than 30 investigative, public service, financial, education and deadline coverage honors, including National Headliner, Gerald Loeb, Education Writers Association, Inland Press Association and James K. Batten awards. He is a founding member of the Investigative News Network and serves on the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism board and the Indiana University Journalism Alumni Advisory Board.
Horvit, Mark – Investigative Reporters and Editors
Mark Horvit, associate professor, Missouri School of Journalism; executive director, Investigative Reporters and Editors
Horvit serves as the executive director for Investigative Reporters and Editors, a professional organization of journalists headquartered at the Missouri School of Journalism. Horvit came to Missouri from the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, where he was the projects editor. An accomplished investigative reporter and editor, Horvit previously has worked at the Panama City (Fla.) News Herald, the Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times, The Houston Post, the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune and The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer. As IRE’s executive director, Horvit supervises 12 full-time staff members; runs IRE’s renowned professional programs, publications and Web site; and oversees the $1.4 million budget, fund-raising campaigns and the more than $3 million endowment fund.
Houston, Brant – University of Illinois
Brant Houston, Knight Foundation Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting, College of Media, University of Illinois
Houston is an award-winning investigative reporter and teaches investigative reporting at the College of Journalism. He served for more than a decade as the executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), a 3,500-member organization, and as a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Houston worked at daily newspapers for 17 years.
Houston also is the author of three editions of the textbook, Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide, and co-author of the fourth edition and fifth edition of The Investigative Reporter’s Handbook.
Currently he is working on projects involving nonprofit journalism, ethnic media newsrooms, and new technologies for news-gathering.
Houston serves at the Chair of the Steering Committee of the newly-formed Investigative News Network, a coalition of nonprofit journalism centers, and as coordinator for the Global Investigative Journalism Network, which he co-founded in the year 2000.
Lanosga, Gerard – Indiana University
Gerard Lanosga, School of Journalism, Indiana University
Lanosga is a national award-winning journalist and an assistant professor at Indiana University and holds a doctorate’s degree in mass communications from Indiana University Bloomington. His research and teaching interests include journalism history, political communication, impact of new media on journalism and political participation, investigative reporting, freedom of information and computer-assisted reporting. Lanosga’s began his journalism career in 1987 when he took a job as an intern with Dow Jones, working as a copy editor.
For the next 20 years, he worked as a reporter, columnists and produced investigative stories for both newspaper and broadcast outlets including the Indianapolis News and Indianapolis Star and NBC affiliate station in Indianapolis, WTHR-TV. Lanosga joined Ball State University in 2009.
McBride, Suzanne – Columbia College
Suzanne McBride, associate chair, Journalism, Columbia College, Chicago
McBride is the associate chair of the journalism department at Columbia College and founder and coordinator of AustinTalks.org, a hyperlocal news site focused on the largest of Chicago’s neighborhoods. Columbia students and neighborhood residents generate news for AustinTalks.org, which launched in April 2010. McBride worked as a reporter for more than 15 years before joining Columbia College in 2005. Under her guidance, McBride’s students have netted several journalism awards. She’s the former assistant managing editor at The Indianapolis Star; former reporter and editor for The Indianapolis News, The Terre Haute (Ind.) Tribune-Star and the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Journal Gazette. McBride worked as a congressional aide for former U.S. Rep. Tony P. Hall in Washington, D.C. Co-founder and co-publisher of ChicagoTalks.org, a local news site that’s won national awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Society of Professional Journalists. In the Spring 2012, McBride will be working in Dublin, Ireland, as part of a grant she won from the Fulbright Program.
Waldron, Eileen – Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Eileen Waldron, Senior Lecturer, Department of Radio-Television, College of Mass Communications and Media Arts, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Eileen Waldron is the Distinguished Broadcast Journalist in the Department of Radio-Television at Southern Illinois University. A former investigative producer for major market local TV news , her work won dozens of awards including an Edward R. Murrow and an Emmy. Waldron was also a print reporter and was the managing editor of the Indianapolis Eye, a groundbreaking on line publication. While there, she was a finalist for an Investigative Reporters and Editors award.
Waldron’s work has exposed problems in the home building industry, bad doctors, dangerous conditions in teen boot camps, and government corruption.
At SIUC, Waldron is the faculty advisor for River Region Evening Edition a student run TV news show. She also teaches TV investigative reporting and her student’s work airs on River Region. In 2007 the newscast won the Broadcast Education Association’s best newscast award. In 2009 the show won a national student Emmy.
Waldron is currently working on a book about top award winning investigative projects in local TV news.