St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editor Gilbert Bailon to Give 60th Media Ethics Keynote Address
Gilbert Bailon, editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, will deliver the keynote address at Washington and Lee University’s 60th Institute of Media Ethics on Nov. 13 at 5:30 p.m. in the Stackhouse Theater, Elrod Commons.
Bailon will speak on “Ethics Amid the Ferguson Firestorm.” His talk is free and open to the public. The institute is funded by the Knight Program in Journalism Ethics and is co-sponsored by W&L’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communications.
His talk will be streamed live online.
“Gilbert Bailon led the St. Louis Post-Dispatch during one of the most volatile, racial firestorms to erupt in the St. Louis metropolitan area,” said Aly Colón, Washington and Lee University’s Knight Chair of Journalism Ethics. “His journalistic instincts, coupled with his ethical focus, enabled his news organization to seek out the voices crying out to be heard and ensure they were fairly documented.”
Bailon joined the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2007 as editorial page editor, becoming editor in 2012. Prior to that, he was the executive editor at The Dallas Morning News. He also worked as a reporter at The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Los Angeles Daily News, The San Diego Union and The Kansas City Star.
Bailon received the Benjamin C. Bradlee 2014 Editor of the Year Award from the National Press Foundation for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s coverage of the police shooting at Ferguson, Missouri, and the social unrest that followed.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography and was a Pulitzer finalist for editorial writing for its coverage related to Ferguson.
In 2003, Bailon was named founding president and editor—and a year later was named publisher and editor—of Al Día, a Spanish-language daily. AlDíaTx.com won a national Edward R. Morrow Award from the Radio Television News Directors Association, the first time this award had been given to a non-broadcast website.
In 2004, he received the prestigious ñ leadership award given by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ).
Bailon served as the 2007-2008 president of American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE); is past president of NAHJ; and was inducted into the NAHJ Hall of Fame. He has served on the nominating juries for the Pulitzer Prizes and the ASNE Writing Awards Committee.
The two-day institute is part of a decades-long tradition of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications. The event brings a half dozen journalists and communications professionals to campus to interact with students enrolled in the department’s required ethics course.
