Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy

The Center for Ethics and Values presents a panel discussion, Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy, featuring Kimi Yoshino, editor-in-chief of The Baltimore Banner, Melissa Block, former host and correspondent for National Public Radio, and Joe Saunders, associate professor of philosophy at Durham University in the United Kingdom.

Admission is free. Registration is recommended, but not required. Please visit here to reserve a seat.

Kimi Yoshino is the editor in chief of The Baltimore Banner, overseeing all newsroom operations, policy and content. Prior to relocating to Baltimore, she was managing editor at The Los Angeles Times, where she worked for 21 years. At The Times, she held numerous roles — as a reporter, editor, and strategic leader, with oversight that crossed almost every area of coverage. In 2011, she helped guide the paper’s investigation into corruption in the city of Bell, which was awarded the Pulitzer Gold Medal for Public Service. Prior to joining The Times, she was a reporter at The Fresno Bee and The Stockton Record. A California native, Yoshino attended the University of California at Davis.

Melissa Block, longtime NPR host and correspondent, is celebrated for her decades of warm yet incisive reporting. Her work over the decades earned her journalism’s highest honors, and made her one of NPR’s most familiar and beloved voices. As host of All Things Considered from 2003 to 2015, her work took her around the country and the world, from the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the heart of Rio de Janeiro; from rural Mozambique to the farthest reaches of Alaska. Her riveting reporting from Sichuan, China, during and after the massive earthquake in 2008 brought the tragedy home to millions of listeners around the world. At the moment the earthquake hit, Block had the presence of mind to record a gripping, real-time narration of the seismic upheaval she was witnessing. Her long-form story about a desperate couple searching in the rubble for their toddler son was singled out by judges who awarded NPR’s earthquake coverage the top honors in broadcast journalism: the George Foster Peabody Award, duPont-Columbia Award, Edward R. Murrow Award, National Headliner Award and the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award.

Joe Saunders works on ethics and agency in Kant and the post-Kantian tradition, as well as media ethics and the philosophy of love. With Carl Fox he edited the recent Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Media Ethics, and a 2019 collection: Media Ethics, Free Speech, and the Requirements of Democracy.

This event is co-sponsored by the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences; the Dresher Center for the Humanities; the Center for Democracy and Civic Life; the Department of English; the Department of Media and Communication Studies; the Department of Political Science; and The Women’s Center.