Award-winning journalist to speak about ‘Guns in America’
October 17, 2011
907-474-7902
10/17/11
Emmy award-winning journalist Cheryl W. Thompson will give a free public lecture, “Guns in America” on Wednesday, Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. in the Noel Wien Library Auditorium.
Thompson is an investigative reporter for The Washington Post who has written extensively about government corruption, immigration, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Washington, D.C. police department’s handling of homicide investigations. She was part of a team of reporters awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting
Most recently, she tracked guns used to kill more than 500 police officers—including several in Alaska—since 2000. The groundbreaking series examined how the killers, many of them felons, got their firearms.
Thompson is a native of Chicago. She has a bachelor's degree in speech communication and a master's degree in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Florida, and Georgetown and Howard universities.
Thompson’s lecture is part of the Snedden Guest Lecture Series. Helen Snedden established the Snedden Chair and lecture series in 2003 with a gift in memory of her late husband, C.W. Snedden, the former publisher and owner of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Since its establishment, the lecture series has allowed the UAF journalism department to bring nationally known journalists to Fairbanks to speak to students, local journalists and the public.
ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: UAF journalism department at 907-474-7761.
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