The SUNY New Paltz Department of Digital Media & Journalism invites all members of the community to a Q&A discussion with the award-winning journalist Amanda Sperber, who is serving as the fall 2023 James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professor of Journalism.
This event takes place on Tuesday, Oct. 3, at 7 p.m. at the Honors Center and is free and open to the public.
President Darrell P. Wheeler will host the discussion, which will focus on Sperber’s life and career as an independent journalist and international correspondent. There will also be time for questions from the audience.
As the Ottaway Visiting Professor, Sperber is teaching “International Reporting,” an undergraduate journalism seminar that looks at what international reporting is, what it takes to do it, and what its limits are in the changing economics of the news industry. Students examine the power dynamics and sensitivities at play when journalists are covering foreign events, particularly involving formerly colonized or currently occupied countries and communities.
About Amanda Sperber
Sperber is an award-winning foreign correspondent who is currently an investigative fellow with Code for Africa– the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism initiative. She previously served as a Logan nonfiction fellow, a residential program opportunity for writers and journalists working to investigate current global issues.
Her work has appeared in Al Jazeera, the Atlantic, the Economist, Foreign Policy, the Guardian, the Intercept, the Nation, NBC, Marie Claire, Reuters, VICE World News, and Vogue, among other publications. Click here for a selection of Sperber’s best work, including excerpts from award-winning investigations
Sperber won the Thomson-Reuters Kurt Schork Memorial Award in the Freelancer Category for her reportage in Somalia. She has received grants from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, the Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting, and the United Nations Foundation, among others.
About the James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professorship
The James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professorship, SUNY New Paltz’s first 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 Sperber 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/.
If you have accessibility questions or require accommodations to fully participate in this event, please contact Digital Media & Journalism Associate Professor Rachel Somerstein, director of the James H. Ottaway Sr. Visiting Professorship in Journalism, at somerstr@newpaltz.edu.
