Prominent journalist takes Snedden chair, offers course
August 24, 2016
Nonfiction author and veteran journalist Adam Tanner has joined UAF's Communication and Journalism Department as a visiting professor.
Tanner's appointment is funded by the Snedden Chair of Journalism and extends through academic year 2016-2017.
This fall, Tanner will teach JRN F421 Perspectives in Journalism, MWF 1-2 p.m. The course is a seminar on contemporary journalism. The class still has openings, and nonjournalists are welcome to join.
Tanner just completed a Nieman Fellowship in journalism at Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science.
He is the author of the 2014 book “What Stays in Vegas: The World of Personal Data — Lifeblood of Big Business — and the End of Privacy as We Know It.” The Washington Post named the book one of 50 notable nonfiction books in 2014.
Tanner has lectured in Canada, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Mauritius. He has appeared on television and radio programs across the world, including CNN, Bloomberg TV, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR, the BBC, VOA, WNYC, Al Jazeera and PRI's The World.
From 1996-2011, Tanner worked for Reuters News Agency as Balkans bureau chief based in Belgrade, Serbia; San Francisco bureau chief; and a reporter posted in Moscow, Berlin and Washington, D.C. He has written for Forbes, Scientific American, Pacific Standard, Slate and other magazines. His next book, “The Big Health Data Bazaar: Uncovering a Multi-Billion Dollar Trade in Our Medical Secrets,” will be published in January 2017.
The fully endowed $2.6 million Snedden Chair of Journalism at UAF was established in 2003 by the late Helen Snedden to honor her husband, Charles Willis Snedden. He was the publisher of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner from 1950 to 1989 and a staunch advocate of Alaska statehood.
The Department of Communication and Journalism is part of UAF's College of Liberal Arts.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Courtney Pagh, UAF Department of Communication and Journalism, at courtney.pagh@alaska.edu or 907-474-7761