Tim McNulty
Co-director
timothy-mcnulty@northwestern.edu
A senior editor and correspondent at the Chicago Tribune for many years, Tim was the newspaper’s public editor until leaving the newspaper in August 2008. Previously, as an associate managing editor, he helped direct the newspaper’s coverage of the September 11 tragedy, the American strike into Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq.
Tim was among the first eight American journalists allowed to live in Beijing in the late 1970s. Later, as the Middle East correspondent, he worked in Beirut and Jerusalem. Upon returning to the U.S., he reported on social and political policy making in Washington for more than 13 years as national affairs correspondent and as a White House correspondent.
Josh Meyer
Director of Education and Outreach
josh@northwestern.edu
Josh spent 20 years with the Los Angeles Times before joining Medill and the initiative in January 2010. He is also the McCormick Lecturer in National Security Studies at Medill.
Josh is the co-author of the 2012 best-seller “The Hunt For KSM; Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the Real 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,’’ which was designated as a New York Times “Editors’ Choice’’ book in July 2012. He is also a member of the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of investigative reporting at the local, national and international levels.
At the Times, Josh won or shared in numerous awards for his reporting on a wide range of issues, including government, politics and law enforcement. From 2000 on, he focused on terrorism and related intelligence, law enforcement and national security issues while traveling extensively to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Persian Gulf.
During his two decades at the Times, he shared two staff Pulitzer Prizes, and was nominated for journalism’s top prize on numerous other occasions. He also was recognized four times with top awards from the Southern California Press Association for his investigative reporting.
Josh also was one of several L.A. Times reporters to win numerous awards for a 2002 series titled “Inside Al Qaeda” about the threat posed by the terror network, including the Overseas Press Club’s Hal Boyle international reporting award.
Ellen Shearer
Co-director
shearer@northwestern.edu
In addition to her duties as co-director of the National Security Journalism Initiative, Ellen is the William F. Thomas Professor of the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University and teaches in the school’s Washington Program. She led the Washington program’s 2004 and 2006 investigative projects, which created databases of privately sponsored congressional travel as part of the student reporters’ investigative series of stories. In 2008-09, she followed up with the Pentagon Travel series, in cooperation with the Center for Public Integrity.
Ellen was a leader in the News21 project on privacy and civil liberties post-9/11, which won a special citation from National Press Foundation and caused the Department of Education to shut down a program that had been sharing student loan data with the Department of Justice. She created and directed “Y Vote 2000: Politics of a New Generation,” a yearlong project to cover the presidential campaign to engage young adults.
She is the co-author of “Nonvoters: America’s No-Shows” and has written chapters in five media books. Before joining the Medill faculty, she was a senior editor at New York Newsday, a consulting editor at Newhouse News Service, marketing executive at Reuters, and held positions as senior executive, bureau chief and reporter during a 10-year stint at United Press International.
Scott B. Anderson
Interactive Strategy
scott-anderson@northwestern.edu
Scott B. Anderson is a Medill Assistant Professor specializing in interactive publishing. He also leads interactive strategy for the National Security Journalism Initiative, including overseeing, producing and reporting for NationalSecurityZone.org and its sibling interactive products, including On the National Security Beat.
Prior to Medill, Anderson was the long-time head of editorial at Chicago-based Tribune Interactive, the umbrella organization for Tribune Company’s award-winning national network of newspaper and broadcast station websites. Previously in his 27 years at Tribune Company, he was an editor, reporter and founding executive producer for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Anderson is a longtime active member of the American Society of News Editors, Online News Association and Investigative Reporters and Editors.
More information at about.me/sbanderson.
Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory
Digital Fellow
jenniferleigh@u.northwestern.edu
Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory is a multimedia investigative journalist, photographer, filmmaker and news producer specializing in the intersections of national security and human rights. A December 2013 Medill M.S.J. graduate, she was the inaugural alumnus of the school’s National Security Journalism Specialization Program and also pursued a Health and Science Reporting Concentration. Following graduation from Medill, she interned with the Magnum Foundation in New York as a human rights and program researcher and reporter, largely focusing on the state of press protections for conflict journalists around the globe. Her work has appeared in outlets including USA Today, USAToday.com, UPI.com, Gannett Government Media, McClatchyDC and AUSA News, and she currently doubles as a news producer on the National Desk of Advance Digital, Inc. An internationally published poet, she also holds a B.A. in English Literature and Writing from New Jersey City University.
