Snedden Chair to speak on future of newspapers

Submitted by Marmian Grimes
Phone: 907-474-7902
10/16/09

Veteran journalist David Offer will speak about the future of newspapers in a free public lecture, "Hold the Obit: Newspapers Aren’t Dead," Thursday, Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. in the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center auditorium.

Offer is serving as the 2009-2010 Charles W. Snedden Chair in Journalism at the University of Alaska Fairbanks journalism department. Offer comes to UAF after spending more than 40 years working as a newspaper reporter and editor throughout the U.S. He has been active in journalism professional organizations throughout his career. He was a founding member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors and a speaker at its first national convention. As a young reporter, he joined the Society of Professional Journalists’ ethics committee and was one of the authors of the society’s 1972 revision of its code of ethics. He has planned and led professional workshops on ethics, investigative reporting, editorial writing, newsroom management and military reporting. Through his work with SPJ, he has served as adviser to several campus newspaper editors. Since his retirement in 2006, Offer has continued to write a column for two newspapers in Maine.

Helen Snedden established the Snedden Chair in 2003 in memory of her late husband, the former publisher and owner of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Since its establishment, the chair has allowed the UAF journalism department to bring a series of nationally known journalists to Fairbanks to speak to students, local journalists and the public.

CONTACT: Charles Fedullo, UAF journalism department, at 907-474-7995 or ffcbf@uaf.edu. Marmian Grimes, UAF public information officer, at 907-474-7902 or via e-mail at marmian.grimes@uaf.edu.

MLG/10-16-09/061ma-10