Online Journalism Pioneer to Speak at Washington and Lee
Neil Budde, former vice president and editor in chief for Yahoo!, will speak about the future of online news at 4:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 14, in the Stackhouse Theater of the John W. Elrod University Commons at Washington and Lee University.
The talk, which is free and open to the public, is entitled “Clicking for News: What Web 2.0 Means for the Future of Journalism.”
Budde, who was also founding editor and publisher of The Wall Street Journal Online, will be on campus as a Donald W. Reynolds Visiting Fellow. In that role, he will speak to classes in both the journalism department and the Williams School of Commerce.
Budde joined Yahoo! News in November 2004 as general manager and helped build it into the most visited online news site in the world. Last January he was promoted to editor in chief over Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sports and Yahoo! Finance. He stepped down from this post last month.
In 2005, Budde’s team launched Yahoo!’s first foray into original multimedia news coverage with Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, for which Kevin Sites received the 2006 Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism, a National Headliner Award and a Webbie.
Before joining Yahoo!, Budde worked for 15 years in digital publishing roles at Dow Jones, and helped The Wall Street Journal’s online site become the largest paid news site on the Internet.
Budde’s career began with a decade of experience as an editor and reporter at The Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., and USA Today. Budde earned a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from Western Kentucky University and an MBA from the University of Louisville. Budde serves on the boards of the Online News Association, the California First Amendment Coalition and the Foundation for American Communications.
Budde’s visit is made possible by a grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, a national philanthropic organization founded in 1954 by the late media entrepreneur for whom it is named. Headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, it is one of the largest private foundations in the United States.
