David Westphal (pictured), the distinguished Washington Editor for McClatchy Newspapers, has joined USC Annenberg as Executive in Residence, Dean Ernest J. Wilson III announced.
“David Westphal is a respected Washington correspondent and editor who understands the innovative thinking needed to help the journalism profession meet the challenges it faces today and in the future,” Wilson said. “At USC Annenberg, he will help us highlight innovation that works and can be sustained for the benefit of the profession and our democratic institutions."
Said Westphal: “I am delighted to join USC Annenberg at a critical moment in journalism history. Rarely has the academy been more needed in bringing a discerning eye to the media revolution under way. I aim to bring a fresh practitioner's perspective to the innovative work USC is doing to equip today's journalists, as well as tomorrow's, for a radically different future.”
In addition to supervising McClatchy’s Washington and foreign bureaus, he led the editorial operations of McClatchy Tribune Information Services, with more than 1,200 media clients worldwide.
Westphal began his newspaper career as editor of a small daily in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He then spent 17 years at the Des Moines Register, where his jobs ranged from sports editor to Washington bureau reporter to managing editor, a job he held from 1988 to 1995.
He joined McClatchy’s Washington bureau in 1995, first as deputy bureau chief and then, in 1998, as bureau chief. In 2006 he supervised the merger of the McClatchy and Knight Ridder Washington bureaus. The combined staff now totals nearly 50 journalists. With 30 newspapers and Web sites, McClatchy is the nation’s third-largest newspaper company and maintains bureaus in Baghdad and seven other world capitals.
He is a two-time winner of the John Hancock Award for business and financial journalism, and also won the Washington Correspondence Award of the National Press Club. He is completing a two-year term as co-chair of the Freedom of Information Committee for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and is a member of the National Press Foundation board of directors.
He is married to Geneva Overholser, the award-winning journalist, editor and scholar who is the new director of USC Annenberg’s School of Journalism. They have three children.
