Pulitzer-Winning Columnist Charles Krauthammer to Give the 2015 Sammons Media Ethics Lecture at SMU, Oct. 7

Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist and FOX News commentator Charles Krauthammer will give the sixteenth annual Rosine Smith Sammons Lecture in Media Ethics at SMU at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, October 7. The lecture will be held in Caruth Auditorium in the Owen Arts Center, 6101 Bishop Blvd. on the SMU campus (Dallas 75205). Admission is free, but tickets are required; to obtain tickets, contact the Meadows box office at 214-768-2787. It is strongly recommended that tickets be reserved in advance; any remaining tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis the night of the event. The Sammons Lecture Series is presented by the Division of Journalism at SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts.

Charles Krauthammer writes a syndicated column for The Washington Post, which appears in more than 400 newspapers worldwide and for which he won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. He is a FOX News commentator, appearing nightly on FOX’s evening news program, Special Report with Bret Baier. His latest book, Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics, a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, has sold more than a million copies.

Born in New York City and raised in Montreal, Krauthammer was educated at McGill University (B.A. 1970), Oxford University (Commonwealth Scholar in Politics) and Harvard (M.D. 1975). While serving as chief resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, he co-discovered a form of bipolar disease.

In 1978, he quit medical practice and went to Washington to help direct psychiatric research in the Carter administration. In 1980, he served as a speechwriter to Vice President Walter Mondale. He joined The New Republic in 1981. Three years later his New Republic essays won the National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism.

From 2001 to 2006, he served on the President’s Council on Bioethics. He is president of The Krauthammer Foundation and chairman of Pro Musica Hebraica, an organization dedicated to the recovery and performance of lost classical Jewish music. He is also a member of Chess Journalists of America.

The Rosine Smith Sammons Lecture Series in Media Ethics is funded by a generous endowment from the Rosine Foundation Fund of the Communities Foundation of Texas, at the recommendation of Mary Anne Sammons Cree of Dallas. The series is named in honor of her mother, Rosine Smith Sammons, who graduated from SMU in the 1920s with a degree in journalism. The endowment will provide permanent resources for the Meadows School of the Arts to present annual lectures focusing on media ethics.

The Division of Journalism, under The Belo Foundation Distinguished Chair Tony Pederson, offers concentrations in all media – broadcast, print and Internet – through its convergence journalism program. With the help of a gift from The Belo Foundation, the Division has become one of the few journalism schools in the country to provide hands-on experience through a new digital newsroom, television studio and website.