Presented by the Povich Journalism Program
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David Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post. In addition to Into the Story: A Writer’s Journey Through Life, Politics, Sports and Loss, Maraniss is the author of five critically acclaimed and bestselling books: When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi; First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton; They Marched Into Sunlight - War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967; Clemente - The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero; and Rome 1960: The Summer Olympics That Stirred the World. David is a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and won the Pulitzer for national reporting in 1993 for his newspaper coverage of then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton. He has won several other notable awards for achievements in journalism, including the George Polk Award, the Dirksen Prize for Congressional Reporting, the ASNE Laventhol Prize for Deadline Writing, the Hancock Prize for Financial Writing, and Latino Book Prize.
Paul Hendrickson, who moderated this conversation, contrasted David Maraniss's "fundamental Midwestern boyishness" and his substantial Pulitzer-level recognition in a lengthy introduction of the esteemed writer. Indeed, Maraniss's cool demeanor and quiet modesty were evident even as he described his extensive reporting in Africa and Indonesia, undertaken for his recent chronicle of the Obama family history, Barack Obama: The Story. Maraniss's honesty is central to his work, whether it apply to deadly battles in Vietnam, 9/11, or Vince Lombardi; throughout the discussion he advocated frank, truthful journalism, a "dangerous" approach to which Maraniss has personally found the most moral and most productive. He attested to the therapeutic nature of writing about the Packers during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the importance of the subconscious in his writing process, and the continuing thrill of finding the perfect sentence; at Hendrickson's request, he also read a gripping sequence from his 9/11 piece for The Washington Post before an intriguing question-and-answer session.
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