Newhouse School of Communications

Charlotte Grimes
Knight Chair, Professor, NEW
Newspaper_Online_Journalism

Office: Newhouse 2 Rm. 496A
Telephone: (315) 443-2366
Email: cgrimes@syr.edu

Passions: Journalism. Democracy. Teaching journalism and its role in democracy.

Philosophy: "Journalism is an act of citizenship."  

Check out: http://knightpoliticalreporting.syr.edu and see her students' work at http://democracywise.syr.edu

Philosophy2: "Good political reporting helps people participate in democracy."

Background:

• Reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 20 years, 12 of them in its Washington bureau.
• Reporter for radio news and newspapers in North Carolina and Virginia.
• Memorable assignments included covering local and national campaigns and elections, the politics and policy of health care and international trade, the U. S. invasion of Panama and the United Nations during the Persian Gulf war; reconstructing the lives and deaths of five Catholic missionaries killed in Liberia's civil war; and reporting from Nicaragua, Mexico, China and Japan.
• Stories won national and local awards, and helped change state laws in Missouri to give better care to rape victims, children in foster care and the elderly in boarding homes.
• A Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.
• A visiting professor at the Newhouse School at Syracuse University.
• A Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.
• Director of the Washington internship program for the Scripps Howard Foundation.
• Head of the journalism program at Hampton University, a member of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Virginia, laying the groundwork for the new Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications.
• A chocoholic who loves mysteries, thrillers and science fiction.
• Home was a boat -- the "Freelance" -- in Washington, D.C. for 12 years and a Winnebago motorhome for three years.
• Her extraordinarily wonderful husband is Tom W. Whitford, a former feature writer turned artist.
• Hometown is Andalusia, Ala.