Geneva Overholser holds the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting for the Missouri School of Journalism, in its Washington, D.C., bureau. She is a frequent print, broadcast and online media critic. With Kathleen Hall Jamieson, she co-edited the recent book, The Press as an Institution of Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2005).

Overholser was editor of The Des Moines Register from 1988 to 1995. She has also been a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group, an editorial board member of The New York Times, ombudsman of The Washington Post, editorial writer and deputy editorial page editor of The Des Moines Register and a reporter for the Colorado Springs Sun. She also wrote a blog for the Poynter Institute Website and a regular column for the Columbia Journalism Review. She spent five years overseas, working and writing in Kinshasa and Paris.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Wellesley College, a master’s in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a French language certificate from the University of Paris. She has received honorary doctorates from Grinnell College and St. Andrews Presbyterian College, and alumnae achievement awards from Wellesley, Northwestern and Medill.

Overholser was a Nieman fellow at Harvard and a Congressional Fellow with the American Political Science Association. She was named “Editor of the Year” by the National Press Foundation and “Best in the Business” by the American Journalism Review. Under her leadership, the Register won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service for a series on the rape of an Iowa woman, using her name and photographs. In 2002, Overholser received the Anvil of Freedom Award. She has been named a fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Overholser is a member of the boards of the John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford, the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism. She serves on the governing board of the Committee of Concerned Journalists and on the Journalism Advisory Committee of the Knight Foundation. She was for nine years a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, the final year as chair, and is a former officer of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and former trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Overholser is married to David Westphal, McClatchy Newspapers' Washington editor. They have three children: Laura, Nell and Paul.

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