Michael Parks is a journalist whose assignments have taken him around the globe, and whose "balanced and comprehensive" coverage of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa earned him the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. From 1997-2000, Parks was the editor of the Los  Angeles Times, a period during which the Times garnered four additional Pulitzer Prizes. He joined the USC Annenberg faculty in Fall 2000 and became the interim director of the School of Journalism in 2001. He was named director of the school in March 2002 and served until June 2008. During the 2013-2014 academic year, he served again as interim director.