Pulitzer Prize winner, author, investigative journalist and editor Amanda Bennett will speak as part of the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media’s Women in Media Leadership Series March 20 at 5:30 p.m. in the Freedom Forum Conference Center.
Bennett is the former executive editor for projects and investigation at Bloomberg News, where she created and ran a global team of investigative reporters and editors. She also helped to found Bloomberg News’ Women’s project.
She was editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer from 2003-2006. Prior to that she was editor of the Herald-Leader in Lexington, Ky. She also served for three years as managing editor/projects for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore. Bennett served as a Wall Street Journal reporter for more than 20 years, holding numerous posts that included auto industry reporter in Detroit in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Pentagon and State Department reporter, Beijing correspondent, management editor/reporter, national economics correspondent and chief of the Atlanta bureau.
In 1997, Bennett shared the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting with her Journal colleagues for far-ranging coverage of the struggle against AIDS; and in 2001, she led an Oregonian team to a Pulitzer for public service, providing an examination of problems within the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Bennett served as co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize board in 2010.
She is on the board of the Loeb Awards and of the Fund for Investigative Journalism. The Bloomberg Projects and Investigations team won numerous awards, including Loeb, Polk, Barlett & Steele, Headliners, Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and Overseas Press Club Awards.
She is the author of six books including “In Memoriam” (1998), co-authored with Terence B. Foley; “The Man Who Stayed Behind,” co-authored with Sidney Rittenberg (1993), “Death of the Organization Man” (1991) and “The Quiet Room,” co-authored with Lori Schiller. “The Cost of Hope,” her memoir of the battle she and Foley, her late husband, fought against his kidney cancer, was published in June 2012 by Random House.
She is a member of The Pennsylvania Women’s Forum. She serves on the boards of the American Society of News Editors; the Temple University Press; Axis Philly, a nonprofit local news site; and the Rosenbach Museum, a Philadelphia museum of rare books.
Bennett is a graduate of Harvard College.