School of Media

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 28, 2013

WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF FOR THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

TO VISIT WKU APRIL 8 FOR JOHN B. GAINES FAMILY LECTURE SERIES

Todd Gillman to offer perspective on journalism inside the Beltway

BOWLING GREEN, Ky.— Todd Gillman, Washington bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News, will present “Beltway Blues: Covering Congress and the White House for a regional news outlet” at 7 p.m. Monday, April 8, in Mass Media & Technology Hall auditorium at Western Kentucky University.

 Gillman is the ninth speaker in the annual John B. Gaines Family Lecture Series, a free WKU event open to the public.

 “Thanks to the generosity of the Gaines family, this lecture series offers our students an opportunity to learn from and to interact with current leaders in journalism,” said David Lee, dean of WKU’s Potter College of Arts and Letters.

As a Washington bureau chief since January 2009, Gillman reported on all three 2012 presidential debates and about a dozen of the GOP primary debates, starting with the first in May 2011 in Greenville, S.C.  He covered the Iowa Straw Poll and the Democratic and Republican conventions and reported on Texas Gov. Rick Perry and other contenders throughout Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire. Spending New Year's Eve in Des Moines, Iowa, ahead of the caucuses, Todd also visited most of the political battleground states by November.

  “Todd’s experience in Washington will not only be beneficial to our journalism students, but to all students and members of the community who are interested in a veteran journalist’s perspective of covering our nation’s political leaders,” said Loup Langton, director of WKU’s School of Journalism & Broadcasting.

Gillman covered his first Texas gubernatorial contest in 1990, and his first presidential campaign two years later. Serving as the paper’s local political writer and columnist during George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign for president, he was a lead writer on the paper’s award-winning coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Gillman joined the newspaper in 1989 reporting on state and regional issues as well as Dallas City Hall before moving to Washington in 2003 to cover Congress.  He holds a bachelor’s degree from The Johns Hopkins University in International Studies and a master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.  A longtime leader in the Society of Professional Journalists, he has served as president of the Dallas Professional Chapter of SPJ, on the SPJ national board and as president of the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation board — SPJ’s supporting foundation — on which he still serves.

Live coverage including streaming video will be at http://bit.ly/toddgillman   

Tweet your comments:  #gillman

About the John B. Gaines Family Lecture Series

The John B. Gaines Family Lecture Series, launched in 2004 in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Gaines’ family-owned newspaper, the Daily News, has brought several award-winning international journalists to WKU.  Previous lecture participants include investigative freelance journalist Lucy Komisar; newspaper journalism icon John Seigenthaler and his son, former NBC network news anchor John Seigenthaler Jr.; Emmy award-winning photojournalist Dai Sugano of the San Jose Mercury News; Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts of The Miami Herald; New Orleans Times-Picayune staff writer Mark Schleifstein; and Chicago Tribune photojournalist and official White House photographer Pete Souza.

For more information on the John B. Gaines Family Lecture Series, contact the WKU School of Journalism & Broadcasting at 270-745-4144.

###