Geneva Overholser

Distinguished Alumnae Award Recipient, 1996

Overholser is a veteran newspaperwoman. She was for seven years editor of The Des Moines Register, leading the paper to a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. She was an editorial board member at the New York Times, and ombudsman for the Washington Post. She also spent five years overseas, working and writing in Paris and Kinshasa.

Until 2013 she was the director of the USC Annenberg School of Journalism and before that she held the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting for the Missouri School of Journalism. In recent years, she has advised numerous organizations, including the Trust Project, Report for America, SciLine, the Democracy Fund and served on the boards of the Rita Allen Foundation, Northwestern University in Qatar and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism Foundation.