NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST EXPLORES "SINS OF THE PRESS"

Abstract

Friday, February 27, 1998

WRITER: Kathy R. Pharr, (706) 542-5172

CONTACT: Paul M. Kurtz, (706) 542-7140

NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST EXPLORES "SINS OF THE PRESS"

ATHENS, Ga. -- Anthony Lewis, award-winning columnist for The New York Times, will examine "Sins of the Press" in the University of Georgia School of Law's 87th Sibley Lecture to be held in the Chapel on Wednesday, March 11 at 3:30 p.m. The lecture, open free to the public, will be followed by a reception on the fourth floor of Dean Rusk Hall.

Lewis, a New York Times columnist since 1969, has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting of national issues. He is the author of three acclaimed books: Gideon's Trumpet, about a landmark Supreme Court Case; Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution, about the great changes in American race relations; and Make No Law: The Sullivan Case and the First Amendment.

"We are delighted to be able to offer a speaker of such stature to the campus community," said Associate Dean Paul Kurtz. "His lecture undoubtedly will be of particular salience in light of the current controversy surrounding the appropriate role of the press in covering the Independent Counsel's investigation of the President."

The Sibley Lecture Series, established in 1964 by the Charles Loridans Foundation of Atlanta, is designed to attract outstanding legal scholars of national prominence to the law school. It honors the late John A. Sibley, a 1911 law school graduate who served for many years as chair of the board of the Trust Company of Georgia.

Lewis worked as a deskman for the Sunday department of The Times from 1948 to 1952, then became a reporter for The Washington Daily News. He won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1955 for a series of articles on the dismissal of a Navy employee as a security risk -dismissal without telling the employee the source or nature of the charges against him. The articles led to the employee's reinstatement.

In 1955, Lewis joined the Washington bureau of The New York Times. In 1956-57, he studied as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard Law School. On his return to Washington he covered the U.S. Supreme Court, the Justice Department and other legal matters, including the government's handling of the civil rights movement, for The Times. He won his second Pulitzer Prize -- for his coverage of the Supreme Court -- in 1963.

Lewis became chief of The Times' London bureau in 1964, and began writing his column in 1969. Since 1973, he has been based in Boston.

Lewis, who earned his bachelor's degree from Harvard University, taught a course on The Constitution and the Press at his alma mater from 1974 to 1989. He has also lectured at numerous other universities and since 1983, has held the James Madison Visiting Professorship at Columbia University.

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