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Visiting Professor at W&L to Talk on A New Generation of Journalists

Tom Mattesky, as the Donald W. Reynolds Distinguished Visiting Professor at Washington and Lee University this term, has been sharing his unique broadcast news experience with students in the journalism and mass communications department.

On Wednesday, March 4, at 4 p.m., he’ll share this experience with the public and the rest of the W&L community in a free talk titled “Help Wanted: A New Generation of Journalists” at Stackhouse Theater in Elrod Commons.

From 1995 to 2007, Tom Mattesky was deputy Washington bureau chief for CBS News. He managed a staff of nearly 200 correspondents, producers and technicians and oversaw the coverage of the White House, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon and the Supreme Court.

Summing up a remarkable 12 years as a news manager, Mattesky says, “I ran the day-to-day operations of a network’s Washington bureau during three presidential elections, the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton, the attacks of Sept. 11th and the launching of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Before his stint as bureau chief, Mattesky spent two years as a producer for CBS News’ “Eye on America” segment. For four years, he was the network’s chief White House producer during the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He has worked with correspondents including Dan Rather, Lesley Stahl and Bob Schieffer. He also spent four years as a field producer based in Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta, and worked for network affiliates in Charlotte and Roanoke. He spent one year after graduation with a newspaper in Carlisle, Pa.

Mattesky won an Emmy in 1987 for investigative reporting for stories exposing problems with the nation’s medical helicopter programs.

Mattesky is a member of W&L’s class of ’74, so his visiting professorship brings him full circle at W&L. His winter term course is entitled “Saving Television News” and he is also helping direct students in the department’s reporting and producing classes, and helping oversee the weekly Rockbridge Report television broadcast and multimedia Web site.

Mattesky’s professorship 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, Nev., the Reynolds Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States.