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Millstone Lecture Features Editor from New York Times
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The School of Law welcomes Gerald M. Boyd, the New York Times' deputy managing editor for news, at this year's Millstone Lecture, an annual event in memory of James C. Millstone. Boyd has supervised the newspaper's daily reporting, including its coverage of Washington, D.C., foreign, national and metropolitan news and has played a major role in shaping day-to-day coverage, including the final line-up and layout of the front page.
Boyd will present "Newspapers in My Blood: From St. Louis to New York to the Future" at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 19, in the Kniep Courtroom of the School of Law. Boyd will participate in a panel discussion, "Can Newspapers Survive in the 21st Century," at 12:30 p.m. Monday, March 20, in the courtroom. Panelists from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch include editor Cole Campbell, deputy editor Virgil Tipton and columnist Greg Freeman, who will serve as moderator.
Boyd became a senior editor at the Times in January 1991 when he was appointed special assistant to the managing editor. That led to brief stints as a top editor in the paper's Washington bureau and in its national and metropolitan departments. Four months after becoming deputy metropolitan editor, he was promoted to the top job, managing a staff of more than 100 reporters and editors. He had the lead role in a major expansion of the metropolitan report, a responsibility that included hiring, reorganizing the staff and reshaping the coverage. In 1994, the New York Times received a Pulitzer Prize for spot news in recognition of its coverage of the bombing of the World Trade Center. It was the paper's first Pulitzer for local reporting in more than two decades.
Boyd joined the Times in 1983 following a 10-year career at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he started as a copy clerk and worked his way up to White House correspondent. Born in St. Louis in 1950, Boyd is founder of the St. Louis Association of Black Journalists.
Millstone, a model and inspiration to the staff of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for more than 30 years, was an advocate for civil rights and the rights of a free and independent press. He died in 1992 after a battle with cancer.
As a reporter, Millstone covered the civil rights movement of the early 1960s, the riots in Washington after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the police riot at the Democratic convention in 1968 and, for many years, the U.S. Supreme Court. He combined a passion for honest reporting with personal integrity and exerted a powerful influence over the content of the newspaper.
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