February 2006 - George Curry

Creating Black History for Tomorrow

7:30 PM

Great Hall, Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center.

George Curry has appeared on virtually all of the major television news programs: The Today Show, Nightline, 20/20, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight, CNN, Fox, C-SPAN, BET, MSNBC and too many others to name. In fact, he says about the only program that he has not appeared on is America's Most Wanted, and he has no intention of adding it to the list.

Some of you know him from his work as editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine from 1993 to 2000. He can be heard three times a week on National Public Radio's "News & Notes with Ed Gordon." If you miss him on TV and radio, he writes a weekly newspaper column that is syndicated to more than 200 weekly newspapers. And for those who have somehow still managed to avoid his writings and commentaries, he has written three books: Jake Gaither: America's Most Famous Black Coach, The Affirmative Action Debate and The Best of Emerge Magazine.

George Curry is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service. His work at the NNPA has ranged from being inside the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases to traveling to Doha, Qatar to report on America's war with Iraq. While in the Persian Gulf, Curry obtained the first interview with Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks after the fall of Baghdad.

For his work in helping improve the quality of the Black Press and for his life-long commitment to helping young people break into the field of journalism, the National Association of Black Journalists honored him as "Journalist of the Year" in 2003. When Curry was editor of Emerge, he was elected president of the American Society of Magazine Editors, the first African-American and non-New York based editor to hold the organization's top post. And the University of Missouri School of Journalism awarded Curry its Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism, the same honor it had earlier bestowed on such luminaries as Walter Cronkite, John H. Johnson, Joseph Pulitzer, and Sir Winston Churchill.