Charlotte Grimes

Charlotte Grimes is the former Knight Chair in Political Reporting at the Newhouse School. 

Passions: Journalism. Democracy. Teaching journalism and its role in democracy.

Philosophy: "Journalism is an act of citizenship." 

Check out: The Robin Toner Program in Political Reporting.

Philosophy 2: "Good political reporting helps people participate in democracy."

Background:

• Reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 20 years, 12 of them in its Washington bureau.
• Reporter for radio news and newspapers in North Carolina and Virginia.
• Memorable assignments included covering local and national campaigns and elections; the politics and policy of health care and international trade; the U.S. invasion of Panama; the United Nations during the Persian Gulf war; reconstructing the lives and deaths of five Catholic missionaries killed in Liberia's civil war; and reporting from Nicaragua, Mexico, China and Japan.
• Stories won national and local awards, and helped change state laws in Missouri to give better care to rape victims, children in foster care and the elderly in boarding homes.
• Was a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University; a visiting professor at the Newhouse School; a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University; director of the Washington internship program for the Scripps Howard Foundation; and head of the journalism program at Hampton University, a member of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities in Virginia, laying the groundwork for the new Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications.
• A chocoholic who loves mysteries, thrillers and science fiction.
• Home was a boat—the "Freelance"—in Washington, D.C., for 12 years and a Winnebago for three years.