Pultizer-Winner Blum To Join Journalism Faculty in Fall

A Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and UW–Madison alumna will join the School of Journalism and Mass Communication faculty this fall.

Deborah Blum, who earned her master’s from the UW–Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, says she hopes to further the cause of good writing, as a teacher both of future journalists and, perhaps, of future scientists.

“The more comfortable scientists are with communicating with the public, the better off we all are in terms of building a science-literate world,” she says. “And we need a science-literate world very badly.”

Blum won the Pulitzer in 1992 for her series “The Monkey Wars,” written for the Sacramento Bee, where she has been a science reporter since 1984. The articles examined ethical and moral questions surrounding primate research.

Robert Drechsel, director of the school, says Blum will add additional luster to its faculty.

“She is esteemed by her national colleagues in journalism, respected by the scientists she has covered and praised by the academics in journalism education who know her work. Our students are fortunate to have a chance to work with her,” he says.

Meanwhile, Blum says she’s looking forward to helping those students realize personal and professional goals.

“Many professions place people in a cocoon, where they talk almost exclusively to people in their own specialty. But reporters are asked to write about subjects they never had an interest in – and make them interesting,” she says. “Journalism is a world-opening profession that teaches you to look outward.”