Monday, Feb 2, 2009
Tim Egan, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning veteran news reporter and New York Times opinion columnist, shared his passion for his craft, and awe and wonder for the political times, when he gave talks recently at Whitman College.
“We’re living in fascinating times,” said Egan, who gave a public talk about the recent presidential election and current economic times and also met with politics students and student journalists.
“Everyone should bookmark 2008 as the start of about six months to a year that shook the world,” said Egan during his Maxey Auditorium talk, which was a free public event.
“I think we’re living through a historic moment.”
Following the talks, listeners shared their appreciation of Egan’s depth of insight, research and analysis.
“I think I was impressed by the insight not only into his craft, but into the nature of people,” said Kari Martin ’09, who attended Egan’s column-writing workshop for Pioneer writers and hopes to pursue journalism career.
Susanne Beechey, assistant professor of politics at Whitman, had Egan talk to her Introduction to U.S. Politics and Policymaking class. Beechey said Egan’s talk had direct relevance for her class. His talk, “The Politics of Possibility,” was his take on how the Obama election changed the cartography of American public life and what to expect in the coming year.
“I hoped he could help bring to life many of the questions swirling around the transition and first week of the Obama administration,” she said, adding that his talk was “fabulous. He offered real insight into what happened in the 2009 elections…”
Egan had a few thoughts about Whitman and its students.
“I think they’re terrific,” he said. “They’re really smart, really engaging.”
He also enjoyed the “intimate setting” on campus as he had opportunities to gather with groups of about 20 students unlike colleges elsewhere where class size can be in the hundreds.
Egan has authored five books, including “The Worst Hard Time,” which tells the story of Dust Bowl survivors and won the 2006 National Book Award for nonfiction. His other books are “The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest,” and “Lasso the Wind, Away to the new West.”
Egan, who lives in Seattle, writes “Outposts,” a weekly opinion piece from the Western perspective, for the New York Times. Prior to that he was a roving reporter for 18 years for the same newspaper, covering such stories as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the O.J. Simpson trial and the collapse of small town America in the Great Plains. In 2001 he shared the Pulitzer Prize with a team of New York Times reporters for their series “How Race is Lived in America.”
Video of Egan’s talk is available here.
— Virginia Grantier
