Bart Gellman’s lecture “Secrets, Leaks and the National Security State, ” April 26

The Department of Digital Media & Journalism at SUNY New Paltz is pleased to announce Barton Gellman’s upcoming lecture titled, “Secrets, Leaks and the National Security State,” scheduled for April 26 at 7 p.m. in Lecture Center room 100. 

The talk is the second event this semester hosted by Gellman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and the College’s current Ottaway Visiting Professor.

The event will be streamed live on Webex. A Q&A and a book signing will follow.

As part of the professorship, Gellman is also teaching “The Literature of Fact,” a creative non-fiction writing course that provides digital media & journalism students with opportunities to write magazine-style narrative stories. 

Currently a staff writer at The Atlantic, Gellman writes about democracy and national security in the U.S. Gellman led the Washington Post team that won a 2014 Pulitzer for coverage of Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency. He’s the author of “Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State” and the bestselling “Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency.” 

More recently, Gellman has emerged as one of the nation’s leading voices covering the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol and related threats to our nation’s political order. 

Gellman is also no stranger to the college classroom, having provided multiple courses and lecture series at Princeton University over the last two decades.

Visit this link to see a video of Gellman’s public introduction to the campus.  

About the James H. Ottaway Sr. 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., who was a leader of the American Press Institute and a lifelong supporter of high-quality journalism in the Hudson Valley and across the globe.

The Ottaway Visiting Professorship was established in 2000 through the generosity of James H. Ottaway Jr. ’18 HON and Mary Ottaway ’70g (Elementary Education). 

Numerous well-known journalists have preceded Gellman as Ottaway professors, including Pulitzer Prize winners, foreign correspondents, book authors, editors, investigative reporters and experts in finance, science and consumer journalism.

More information about the Ottaway Visiting Professorship, including biographies of previous professors, can be found at https://www.newpaltz.edu/ottaway/.