Sharif Durhams, a deputy managing editor at The Washington Post, will headline the 25th annual Ann Devroy Memorial Forum tonight (April 28) at UW-Eau Claire.
Durhams will speak at 7 p.m. in the Gantner Concert Hall, in the Haas Fine Arts building on the UW-EC campus. The event is free and open to the public and no tickets are required. It will also be available via Zoom.
The forum was established in 1998 in memory of Devroy, a 1970 UW-EC graduate who went on to be acknowledged as one of the best reporters ever to cover the White House. It brings a leading journalist to UW-EC each spring for a talk aimed at both campus and community audience members.
This year’s speaker
Durhams grew up in Raleigh, NC and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina. He rejoined The Post this year after a stint as managing editor of papers in Raleigh and Durham.
He also served as interim editor there for several months. Earlier in his career, he was the first social media editor and digital strategist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
At The Post, he now oversees the general assignment news desk, the Morning Mix team and the live desk and works with the foreign desk.
Durhams is the current president of NLGJA: the Association of LGBTQ Journalists, which he joined in 2000. He also has served as co-leader of the Poynter-Washington Post Leadership Academy for Diversity in Media.
During his time in Eau Claire, Durhams will meet with UW-EC journalism students in addition to his Forum presentation.
Some Background
Devroy, a Green Bay native, covered the White House for the Gannett media chain before moving to The Post in that same role. The people she covered, as well as her news media colleagues and competitors, repeatedly noted her fair and thorough reporting in describing her as one of the best journalists ever to cover that beat.
After her death in 1997 from cancer at the age of 49, her colleagues at The Post and elsewhere established the Ann Devroy Memorial Fellowship at UW-EC. In addition to the Forum, it provides an outstanding journalism student with a scholarship and a three-week residency at The Post during winterim each year.
That UW-EC student also has the opportunity to apply for a paid summer internship with a Wisconsin news media outlet. This year’s Devroy Fellowship winner, selected by the Journalism faculty members, will be announced – as usual – at the Forum tonight.
This year will mark the first in-person Ann Devroy Forum presentation since 2018, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
NOTE: You can read more about Devroy and her journalism career here, in an account written by Gina Duwe, the 2004 Devroy Fellow.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: the home page photo shows Ann Devroy interviewing then-President Bill Clinton in 1996. (Photo by Robert Reeder, The Washington Post)