EUGENE–Oregonian editor Sandra Mims Rowe, widely rated as one of the most dynamic and successful editors in the country, is the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication’s 2000 Ruhl lecturer.

She will discuss "Ethics in the Age of Media Convergence" at 4 p.m. on Wednesday,
May 10, in the Adelaide Church Memorial Reading Room in the Knight Library located at
1501 Kincaid St. on the UO campus. The lecture is free and open to the public.

"Sandy Rowe is considered by her peers to be one of the premier editors in the nation," says Tim Gleason, dean of the UO School of Journalism and Communication. "I’m confident that her lecture will provide all of us with some provocative insights about the influence of today’s new media on ethical practices in journalism and challenge our thinking on how journalism should be practiced in the 21st century."

Rowe has a history with Pulitzer Prizes. For 22 years, she reported for The Virginian-Pilot and Ledger-Star newspapers and was named executive editor and vice president in 1984. Under her leadership, the newspaper won the Pulitzer for general news reporting in 1985.

When she moved to the Oregonian in 1993, Rowe restructured the Oregonian newsroom into teams and increased the local and regional news coverage. Seven years later, the newpaper’s reputation in the local community and journalism circles is excellent. The Oregonian staff captured the Pulitzer for explanatory reporting in 1999. The Oregonian is now rated among the 12 best newspapers in the country according to a recent poll by the Columbia Journalism Review.

Rowe, former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, is on the advisory board of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. The mission of both the Poynter Institute and the Ruhl lectures are similar–to promote integrity and ethics in journalism.

Rowe also is on the advisory board of the Freedom Forum Pacific Coast Center in San Francisco, a nonpartisan, international foundation dedicated to free press and free speech. She chairs the John S. and Janet L. Knight Foundation Journalism Advisory Board.

She graduated from East Carolina University in 1970 and completed the Management Development Program at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Business in 1990.

The Ruhl Symposium is supported by an endowment established by the late Mabel Ruhl of Medford in memory of her husband Robert W. Ruhl, who died in 1967. He was the Pulitzer Prize-winning editor and publisher of the Medford Mail Tribune.

For more information about the Ruhl Symposium, please contact Jennifer King at (541) 346-5847.

—30—

#P-1203/Local,PDX,PDX Special/mkl