In Conversation with Bill Keller

Bill Keller has been an important, central figure in American journalism for decades. His most significant roles came with his work at the New York Times where he wore many hats: Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and bureau chief in Moscow during the collapse of the Soviet Union, bureau chief in South Africa during the collapse of apartheid, foreign editor, op-ed writer, and then executive editor from 2003-2011. Today he heads up The Marshall Project, a non-profit news organization that “seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system.”

Keller recently talked about his work and the state of the news business in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review:

“My worry about criminal justice reporting is that—because it’s complicated, lacking in transparency, often grim, and expensive to do well—it will fall back into a state of neglect before anything gets fixed. My worry about the press writ large is that I’m wrong about the average American’s bullshit detector, that the new president will sow widespread cynicism, and that people will tune out. Those of us who have worked in countries with authoritarian regimes know where that goes.”

In our conversation with Keller, we’ll talk about his days at the Times, the current state of American journalism, and the important work being done by The Marshall Project.

“Ultimately all journalism—especially watchdog journalism, accountability journalism, investigative journalism, call it what you will—aims to lay bare problems in the hope that someone will fix them. We want to make a difference.” Bill Keller