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AU School of Communication and The Washington Post Partnership

Journalism >> AU School of Communication and The Washington Post Partnership


About the photos

American University-Washington Post Partnership

Studying in Washington has its perks. Especially if you're at the School of Communication, which enjoys a longstanding partnership with one of the city's premiere institutions and the nation’s fifth largest newspaper, The Washington Post. In fact, The Post's former executive editor Len Downie cited our journalism program as a path to success in a washingtonpost.com online chat.

Here's a sample of how the school and news organization work together.


The Post's Mike Keegan
  • SOC and the The Post mounted a Visual Journalism Summit to explore how photos, maps, graphics and multimedia add depth and breadth to reporting. Speakers included Mike Keegan, assistant managing editor of news art; Joe Elbert, managing editor for photography; Tom Kennedy, washingtonpost.com; and Suzanne Tobin, comics editor, and was moderated by Wendall Cochran, chair of SOC's journalism division.
  • Post Chairman and CEO Donald Graham was SOC's 2006 commencement speaker.
  • Patrick Butler '96, vice president of The Washington Post Company, is an AU trustee and chairs SOC's Dean's Advisory Council, the alumni group leading the school's campaign to build a new home.
  • Jim Brady '89, vice president and executive editor, washingtonpost.com, and Desson Thomson '80, former Post film critic, are active participants in SOC's Alumni Mentoring Program, which pairs alums with individual students for a semester of professional advice and networking.
    • Dean Larry Kirkman and Don Graham
    SOC Dean Larry Kirkman congratulates Post CEO and chair Don Graham while SIS Dean Lou Goodman and AU President Neil Kerwin look on

  • The Washington Post Semester Consortium brings reality and immediacy to the journalism classroom experience. Students meet weekly with editors and reporters to discuss topical issues, including heated political races, the embattled economy and the future and business of newspapers.
  • Washingtonpost.com published Youth Vote ’08: A Millennial Take of Election 2008 from Four Battleground States, a series of articles by Prof. Jane Hall's Washington Reporting class based on a survey of young voters the class conducted in four battleground states. The national news site published a similar series of articles, College Vote '08, from Prof. Hall's Politics and the Media class in fall 2007.

    • AU-Washington Post Speakers Series

    Now in its third year, the American University-Washington Post Speakers Series has already brought a full roster of executives and reporters to talk with everyone from SOC first-year students in Understanding Mass Communication to MA candidates in the Public Affairs Seminar. Look at this line up.

      Speaker Profiles

      Alec Klein, an award-winning reporter at The Post, is the author of Stealing Time: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Collapse of AOL Time Warner, a national bestseller that The New York Times called "a compelling parable of greed and power and hubris."

      Perry Bacon worked at TIME magazine for five years covering national politics before joining The Post, where he now covers the Presidential campaign beat. A native of Louisville, KY, he graduated from Yale University in 2002.

      Before joining The Washington Post as director of financial accounting, Mark Ross worked in accounting firm KPMG’s Washington DC office, where he led audits of USAirways, Price George’s County, Maryland and many local banks, savings & loans and non-profit organizations.

      Juliet Eilperin joined The Washington Post in March, 1998 as its House of Representatives reporter, where she covered the impeachment of Bill Clinton, lobbying, legislation, and five national congressional campaigns. Since April, 2004 she has covered the environment for the national desk. Her first book, Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives, was published in 2007.

      Emily Messner is the author of The Debate, one of washingtonpost.com's first blogs, launched in 2005. She has also written editorials for The Post, produced radio programming for it, and published freelance articles for the paper's Style, Metro, Home, Outlook and Sunday Source sections.

      Keith B. Richburg, foreign editor at The Washington Post, joined the paper in 1980 as a Metro staff reporter after two summer internships in 1978 and 1979. Since 1986, Richburg has served as The Post's bureau chief in Manila, Nairobi, Hong Kong and Paris before assuming his present position in 2005. He has covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003. He has won two George Polk Awards for Foreign Reporting and two Citations for Excellence from the Overseas Press Club.

    About the photos: SOC Dean Larry Kirkman and former Development Director Anne Menotti are working to build a new home for the school with alumnus Pat Butler, vp of The Washington Post Company and chair of the SOC Dean's Advisory Council. Don Graham, CEO and chair of The Washington Post Company, addresses SOC's class of 2006. SOC alums Jim Brady, vp and executive editor, washingtonpost.com, and Desson Thomson, movie critic at The Post, are active in SOC's Alumni Mentoring Program.