Noted journalist and author to talk about power of investigative reporting

When those in power lie, the public is often in the dark until it’s too late to do anything about it, says a leading American investigative journalist.

Charles Lewis, a journalism professor and founding executive editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University School of Communication in Washington, will be on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus on Thursday, Oct. 9, for a public talk about the question, “Investigative Journalism and the Future of Truth.”

Lewis is expected to talk about how journalists have helped reveal the truth of some of the most significant misrepresentations of fact by those in power.

“In the easily manipulated information age we live in today, truth delayed is truth (and accountability) denied,” Lewis writes in his new book “935 Lies: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity.”

Lewis’ lecture is scheduled for 4 p.m. in Howard Auditorium in the Fluno Center, 601 University Ave.

Lewis is a former producer for ABC News and CBS News’s 60 Minutes and the founder of the award-winning Center for Public Integrity and its International Consortium of Investigative Journalist.

“Charles Lewis is one of the world’s most courageous and innovative journalists,” says Andy Hall, executive director of the nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. “Through his work, deadly abuses of power have been revealed. He understands, better than anyone, the changing journalistic landscape, and how barriers to truth-telling imperil our democracy.”

Hall says the Wisconsin center is modeled largely on Lewis’ respected Center for Public Integrity, which began operating in 1989 in Washington, D.C., and Lewis serves as a board member of the Wisconsin center and many other journalism organizations across the nation.

Lewis is the author of several books, including “935 Lies” and the New York Times bestseller “The Buying of the President 2004.”

Lewis’ lecture is part of the Ralph O. and Monona H. Nafziger lecture series and is sponsored by the UW–Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The talk is free and open to the public.

For more information, visit journalism.wisc.edu.