Writing a story the right way

Jacqui Banaszynski, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and internationally recognized writing coach, will be the keynote speaker March 5 at the University of Idaho's Oppenheimer Ethics Symposium.

During her presentation at 4:30 p.m. in the College of Law Courtroom, Banaszynski will talk about the ethics of intimate, narrative storytelling.

The presentation is free and open to the public.

Banaszynski holds the Knight Chair at the Missouri School of Journalism, where she focuses on coaching the nonfiction storytellers of the 21st century. A veteran newspaper reporter and editor, she traveled to all seven continents, including three trips to Antarctica. She has covered corruption and crime, beauty pageants and popes, AIDS and the Olympics, dogsled expeditions and refugee camps, labor strikes and political strife, traffic fatalities and family tragedies.

She won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for an intimate series on a gay farm couple dying of AIDS during the first years of the epidemic in America, and was a finalist for the 1986 Pulitzer Prize in international reporting for her eyewitness account of the famine and refugee crisis in sub-Saharan Africa.

This is the fourth Oppenheimer Ethics Symposium, produced annually by the University of Idaho School of Journalism and Mass Media. The event is underwritten by a gift from UI graduates Douglas F. Oppenheimer, president of Boise-based Oppenheimer Companies, and Arthur F. "Skip" Oppenheimer, chairman of the board.

School of Journalism and Mass Media Director Kenton Bird said he is a longtime admirer of Banaszynski's work.

"Her views about the relationship between reporters and their sources challenge the conventional wisdom about journalistic ethics," he said.

"As always, JAMM is grateful to the Oppenheimer family for supporting this event," Bird said. "Both Doug and Skip Oppenheimer have a long-standing interest in professional ethics and a commitment to engaging students on these important issues."