A conversation with Wesley Lowery and Michele Norris
Date: Friday, Feb. 19, 2016 Time: 11:00 – 12:30 p.m. Location: Taylor Seminar Room, Lippmann House, 1 Francis Ave., Cambridge
Join us as two of the leading journalists covering race in America discuss their work and the importance of a diversity of voices in both newsrooms and reporting.
Wesley Lowery
Wesley Lowery is a national reporter who covers law enforcement, justice, race and politics at The Washington Post. Prior to joining The Post in 2014, he worked as a breaking news and local politics reporter for The Boston Globe, and has also reported for the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal. In 2014, he was named the National Association of Black Journalists’ “Emerging Journalist of the Year” and in 2015, received the “Best Journalist” Shorty Award for social media use. Lowery has reported on the complexities of race relations in America, including the rash of highly publicized police killings of unarmed black men around the country – among them unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Michele Norris is an award-winning journalist who most recently worked for NPR where she served as host of “All Things Considered” and produced in-depth profiles, interviews and series. Norris is curator of The Race Card Project, an initiative to foster a wider conversation about race in America that she created after the publication of her 2010 family memoir “The Grace of Silence.” The book uncovers long-hidden family secrets that raise questions about her racial legacy and shed new light on America’s complicated racial history. Before joining NPR in 2002, she spent almost 10 years as a reporter for ABC News in the Washington bureau. She has also worked as a staff writer for The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
Norris was named “Journalist of the Year” by the National Association of Black Journalists in 2009. Her numerous other awards include an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for a series on the intersection of race and politics she did with NPR’s Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep; an NABJ Salute to Excellence Award; the University of Minnesota’s Outstanding Achievement Award; and a Livingston Award. In 2009, she was named one of Essence Magazine’s 25 Most Influential Black Americans and was elected to Ebony Magazine’s Power 150 list. Norris also earned both an Emmy Award and Peabody Award for her contribution to ABC News’ coverage of 9/11.
