Emma Malinak ’25 to Present Final DeLaney Center Dialogue Discussion of the 2025-26 Academic Year Malinak will offer personal perspective on covering the Black community in present day Lynchburg, Virginia.
Emma Malinak ’25The DeLaney Center at Washington and Lee University will present two events Tuesday, May 5, featuring Emma Malinak ’25, reporter for Cardinal News and corps member for Report for America.
The first event is a Reading Club Breakfast held from 8 to 9 a.m. in the first-floor banquet room at the Gin Hotel in downtown Lexington. The second event is a DeLaney Dialogue discussion held in the Reeves Museum of Ceramics from noon to 1 p.m. Both events include a free meal and are open to the public.
Malinak’s discussion, “When History Makes Headlines: Reporting Race in the 21st-Century South,” centers on the articles she has written about the Black community in Lynchburg, Virginia.
The Reading Club Breakfast will set the stage for the afternoon DeLaney Dialogue session as participants read and discuss two articles Malinak has written in the last year, one on the past and present of Lynchburg’s first integrated library, and another on a community effort to revitalize a historic Black community hub.
The afternoon session will take a deeper dive into Malinak’s articles and the intricacies of covering race-related topics in the 21st-century South.
“We often think of news as what’s new, but I’ve found in my first year of reporting that history shapes conversations of who we are and what we care about in ways that can’t be ignored at the newsdesk,” said Malinak. “I’m looking forward to sharing with the W&L community how I tune into the voices of the past and contextualize their influence on our present-day South.”
Malinak is finishing her first year with Cardinal News, an independent nonprofit and nonpartisan news site serving Southwest and Southside Virginia. As a corps member for Report for America, she was placed with Cardinal News to report on under-covered issues in the Lynchburg area. Malinak earned a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and English with a minor in Africana studies from Washington and Lee in 2025. A Johnson Scholar at W&L, she served as co-editor-in-chief of the Ring-tum Phi, W&L’s independent student newspaper, and was founding CEO of the Ring-Tum Phi, Inc., a nonprofit corporation designed to secure a sustainable financial model for the publication.
The DeLaney Dialogue series was created to engage audiences in conversation about regionally resonant themes, allowing for open discourse and learning opportunities. Exhibiting innovative strategies for teaching and researching Southern racial realities, these programs allow faculty and other interested participants to imagine how this protean region fits into broader professional and public possibilities.
The DeLaney Center is an interdisciplinary academic forum that promotes teaching and research on race and Southern identity. Visit the DeLaney Center website for updates on further DeLaney Dialogues, film screenings and other programming.
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