The Center for Ethics in Journalism welcomes this week visiting professor emeritus Raquel Rutledge for fall 2021. Rutledge is an investigative journalist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where she covers a variety of topics ranging from health and science to crime and taxes. His investigation into fraud in the Wisconsin Day Care Grant Program won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting.

“I am delighted to help students at the University of Arkansas prepare to bring to light hidden truths in the most powerful way possible,” she said. “There are few more important things.”

Raymond McCaffrey, director of the Center for Ethics in Journalism, said Rutledge’s appointment was particularly important at a time when many local newspapers have been forced to downsize or cease publishing altogether due to the economic challenges of the global pandemic and global conversion. from print to digital news.

“The power of hard-hitting local journalism can be seen in Raquel’s ongoing work,” McCaffrey said.

Most recently, Rutledge conducted an investigation into the violence healthcare workers face at work and the ways hospitals fail to protect them. The “In the Shadows” series won a 2021 National Headliner Award for Commercial Reporting and was recently named a finalist for a Gerald Loeb Award.

“We are delighted to have Raquel Rutledge join us this fall,” said Professor Larry Foley, President of the School of Journalism and Strategic Media. “Investigative journalism is fascinating and indispensable, and we are all eager to learn from one of the best. We deserve the truth, and it often takes investigative reporting to tell us what is really going on, in business, politics and within our individual. communities. “

As part of an O’Brien scholarship to Marquette University in 2014, Rutledge discovered how a chemical known to cause fatal lung disease endangers coffee workers and those who use e-cigarettes. She was recognized in 2018 with national awards for exposing dozens of tourist deaths and injuries to Mexico and the dangers barrel recycling plants pose to workers and residents nearby.

In 2011, Rutledge was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University to study food regulation. The following year, she investigated the FDA and a local company responsible for contaminated alcohol wipes linked to the death of a 2-year-old boy. The “Shattered Trust” series has won a Gerald Loeb Award as well as other national accolades.

Rutledge is married and has two sons, one in high school and the other in university in Spain. She is obsessed with the two dogs in the family, is enthusiastic about her multi-ethnic religious community, and enjoys hiking, mountain biking and exploring the world whenever possible.

For updates on the Distinguished Visiting Faculty Lecture Series, visit the Center for Ethics in Journalism website or contact Alexis Campbell at [email protected]

About the Center for Ethics in Journalism: The Center for Ethics in Journalism was established at the University of Arkansas in 2013. The center was founded on the belief that the future of great journalism depends on the ethical practices of those who gather and present the news. The center promotes critical thinking as being foremost in the process of reaching ethical choices in identifying, collecting and presenting information that informs the public, whose decisions shape democracy. The Center for Ethics in Journalism is part of the School of Journalism and Strategic Media at the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas.