Pulitzer Prize winner to speak at UW-Madison on media, religion and Iraq

University of Wisconsin–Madison alumnus and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Shadid will be on campus to deliver an inaugural lecture on ethics and journalism.

Shadid, a foreign correspondent for the New York Times who has been recognized for his reporting on the Iraq war, will speak on “The Truths We Tell: Reporting on Faith, War and the Fate of Iraq.”

“Anthony is well-positioned to explore the difficult task of reporting on the war and the complex history of U.S. involvement in Iraq, having spent many years as a reporter on the ground in the Middle East,” says Stephen J.A. Ward, Burgess professor of journalism ethics and director of UW–Madison’s Center for Journalism Ethics.

Shadid’s lecture is at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 2, in the Alumni Lounge of the Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St.

The ethics lecture is co-sponsored by the UW Center for Journalism Ethics and the Lubar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions, with additional support from the UW Lectures Committee and the UW–Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Shadid graduated from UW–Madison in 1990 with bachelor’s degrees in journalism and political science; he also studied Arabic. Shadid earned a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 2004 for his coverage from Iraq during and after the U.S. invasion in March 2003, and he was a finalist for the prize in 2007.

In awarding Shadid his second Pulitzer Prize in 2010, the judges recognized “his rich, beautifully written series on Iraq as the United States departs and its people and leaders struggle to deal with the legacy of war and to shape the nation’s future.”

His assignments often carry great risk. In March 2002, Shadid was shot in the shoulder while covering fighting in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Shortly afterward, he was honored with the journalism school’s Ralph O. Nafziger Award, honoring achievements by young alumni, and in 2005 received a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Wisconsin Alumni Association.