Following a one-year hiatus, the Distinguished Lecture Series returns to Boise State University with Washington Post reporter Steve Fainaru, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Fainaru will speak at 7 p.m. Feb. 16 in the Morrison Center. His lecture is free and no tickets are required.
Steve Fainaru
Fainaru will discuss his experiences covering the war in Iraq and the implications of a world without newspapers. What if they held a war and nobody covered it? With newspapers disappearing and those that remain eliminating expensive foreign coverage, information on how America conducts its business abroad is rapidly decreasing.
Fainaru won the Pulitzer Prize for his 10-part series on private security contractors in Iraq that operate outside many of the laws governing American forces. In December 2008 he published a book on the topic titled “Big Boy Rules.” He also received the Overseas Press Club’s Hal Boyle Award for best newspaper or wire service reporting from abroad for his stories on the topic.
In April, the Post began running an ongoing series written by Fainaru and colleague William Booth. Titled “Mexico at War: On the Front Lines,” the articles focus on the increasing violence in the Mexican drug war.
Fainaru covered the war in Iraq from 2004-2007 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 2006 for his coverage of U.S. troops as the insurgency in Iraq intensified. He has worked for the Post since 2000, previously covering civil liberties and the fight against terrorism and serving as an investigative reporter focusing on sports.
Before writing for The Washington Post, Fainaru worked at The Boston Globe for 11 years, covering the Boston Red Sox, Wall Street and Latin America. He served as that newspaper’s Latin- America bureau chief. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Fainaru is co-author of “The Duke of Havana: Baseball, Cuba and the Search for the American Dream,” which chronicled the odyssey of pitcher Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez and his defection from post-Cold War Cuba.
Since 2001, the Distinguished Lecture Series has brought to Boise State speakers who have had major impacts in politics, the arts, science, business or in other realms of contemporary significance.
Former speakers in the series include environmental architect William McDonough, National Book Award winner Jonathan Kozol, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, Nobel laureate in Economics Joseph Stiglitz, biologist E.O. Wilson and Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former president of Poland Lech Walesa, among others. More information on the series is at www.boisestate.edu/distinguishedlectures/.
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Media Contact: Kathleen Tuck, University Communications, (208) 426-3275, kathleentuck@boisestate.edu
THE NEW U RISING: Boise State University has been selected among the nation’s “top up-and-coming schools” in U.S. News and World Report’s annual “America’s Best Colleges” issue. Recognized for its striking improvements and innovations, Boise State is ranked No. 3 in the West among master’s degree institutions.
