Ottaway Visiting Professor will address campus on April 12

Author and journalist Eyal Press, the 2016 James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professor of Journalism, will give a public speech titled “Telling the Story of What Divides Us,” on Tuesday, April 12, at 7 p.m. in the Coykendall Science Building Auditorium.

The event is free and open to the public. A reception and book signing will follow.

Press is the author of Beautiful Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks, and Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times, a book of narrative journalism that considers the choices and dilemmas faced by those who reject duty and the expectations of others in order to remain true to their principles.

At a public introduction and Q & A earlier this semester, Press spoke with New Paltz President Donald P. Christian and an assembly of students, faculty and community members about his experiences reporting on contentious issues, and the necessity of combating his own internal biases.

“I feel an obligation to try to understand the way that people who don’t agree with me think about these divisive issues,” Press said. “If you don’t think about the other side’s story, it can lead very quickly to dehumanizing them and even to excusing or justifying violence against them. So I’ve come to feel that it would be reckless and a disservice to my readers if I didn’t think about, know and learn the narratives on all sides of an issue.”

Press has made this challenge a point of emphasis in “Reporting on Divisive Subjects,” the journalism seminar he is teaching this semester, and it will serve as the focus of his April 12 talk.

For information about the event, contact Lisa Phillips, assistant professor of journalism and Ottaway coordinator, at phillipl@newpaltz.edu.

About the Ottaway Visiting Professorship

The James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professorship, SUNY New Paltz’s only endowed professorship, is named for the founder of Ottaway Newspapers Inc., now the Local Media Group, which operates print and online community media franchises in seven states. The flagship newspaper of the chain is the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y.

Fourteen well-known journalists have preceded Press as Ottaway professors, including four Pulitzer Prize winners: Renée C. Byer, a photographer for The Sacramento Bee; former New York Times investigative reporter and columnist Sydney Schanberg; Bernard Stein, an editorial writer with The Riverdale Press; and John Darnton, a former Times foreign correspondent.

Other previous Ottaway professors were: multimedia journalist and author Alissa Quart; science journalist and author Sonia Shah; NPR Foreign Correspondent Deborah Amos; New York Times investigative reporter Andrew Lehren; award-winning broadcast journalist and media consultant John Larson; Ann Cooper, a former public radio reporter who headed the Committee to Protect Journalists; Byron E. Calame, a longtime Wall Street Journal editor and reporter who has served as The New York Times’ public editor; Roger Kahn, the author of 20 books and one of America’s foremost literary journalists; Trudy Lieberman, one of America’s best consumer reporters; and Martin Gottlieb, the global edition editor of The New York Times.