Creason Lecture is April 6

Creason Lecture is April 6

Photo of Earl Caldwell
Earl Caldwell

During the Creason Lecture ceremony, the 2004 inductees into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame housed at the University of Kentucky will be introduced. The new Hall of Fame members are Glen Bastin, former news director at WHAS in Louisville; Maria Braden, former UK journalism professor; John Egerton, a career free-lance reporter-writer; John Fleischaker, a leading media attorney; and Eliza Piggott Underwood, Kentucky’s pioneering woman journalist.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (March 19, 2004) -- Earl Caldwell, a journalist who has witnessed some of the most important civil rights events of the past 40 years and who was present when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., in 1968, will give the 2004 Creason Lecture at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 6, in Memorial Hall at the University of Kentucky.

Caldwell, who is currently writer-in-residence at the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education in Oakland., Calif., has worked for many of the major newspapers in America. He currently hosts the Pacifica radio show, “The Caldwell Chronicle,” which can be heard on 99.5 FM in New York City or on the Web.

While a reporter for the New York Times in the 1970s, Caldwell refused to reveal the sources for his stories about civil rights and the Black Panther party. His position was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972.

Other newspapers Caldwell reported for include the New York Daily News, the Herald Tribune and the The Post in New York City, The Progress in Clearfield, Pa., the Intelligencer-Journal in Lancaster, Pa., and the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y.

The format for the 2004 Creason Lecture, named for the late Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Joe Creason, will be somewhat different, said Beth Barnes, director of the UK School of Journalism and Telecommunications. “Mr. Caldwell will be interviewed in a conversation format by long-time Courier-Journal reporter, columnist and editor David Hawpe,” Barnes said.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to share the experiences of someone who was such an active journalist during the turbulent civil rights era of the ‘60s and ‘70s,” Barnes added.

The Creason Lecture is supported by an endowment from the Bingham Foundation of Louisville. The event is free and open to the public.