Fort Valley State University announced that trailblazing Emmy Award-winning journalist Ed Gordon will serve as a visiting lecturer for the Fall 2018 semester. Gordon will teach special “master classes” at FVSU to provide students with invaluable first-person insight into historic, contemporary, and emerging issues related to the journalism field based on his professional experience. Course topics will range from a look at the business of media to the entomology of a news story, including the impact of social media on its development and distribution. Visiting lecturers at FVSU are professionals with distinguished careers who have been recognized as pioneers in their fields. Gordon’s course will be part of programming in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts and Media Studies.

“I am excited to become a member of the FVSU family,” said Gordon. ” Being a visiting lecturer gives  me a real opportunity to share my skills and some tricks of the trade with a new generation of aspiring journalists. I want to thank Dr. Jones and his staff for the warm welcome. Most of all, I look forward to engaging with these students who are readying themselves for a career in communications.”

Few journalists have pioneered pathways with the profundity of Ed Gordon. He rose to national prominence as anchor of BET News, host of BET Tonight, and creator of Conversations with Ed Gordon, a one-on-one interview series of specials, also on BET.  As one of the first and few nationally-televised anchors with a special focus on news related to people of color, he has showed the world the power of the African-American intellectual and social perspective. At the same time, he has helped African-Americans demand and receive attention on the issues and people most important to them. Today, Gordon is the host and executive director of Ed Gordon, a quarterly news magazine on Bounce TV, a regular commentator on the Steve Harvey Morning Show, president of the multi-service production company Ed Gordon Media, host of the nationally syndicated radio program Weekend with Ed Gordon, and delivers daily commentary through Right Now with Ed Gordon segments broadcast on radio stations across the country.

“Ed Gordon is a uniquely innovative leader who can prepare our students for careers as change agents and to lead forward-thinking disruption in their fields instead of merely reacting to it,” said Dr. Paul Jones, FVSU president. “His students will receive a priceless education no book can replicate.”

Gordon’s reputation for journalistic excellence has not been built solely on issues facing African-Americans, however. He has been a contributing correspondent for NBC’s Today Show and Dateline, CBS’s 60 Minutes II, PBS, and NPR. The impeccably well-prepared journalist has interviewed an extraordinarily diverse array of newsmakers and legendary public figures, including President Barak Obama, President Bill Clinton, South African President Nelson Mandela, Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce, Michael and Janet Jackson, Kevin Hart, Idris Elba, Tupac Shakur, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, O.J. Simpson, and R. Kelly. He anchored BET’s coverage of the 2012 presidential election, Obama’s second inauguration, Nelson Mandela’s funeral in South Africa, and the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington.

More recent career highlights include an emotional interview with The Mothers of the Movement, a group of women whose children had been killed by senseless violence, a profile of “Auntie” Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and exclusive interviews with comedian Steve Harvey, R&B singer Maxwell, and the cast of the mega-movie, Girls Trip.

In addition to an Emmy, Gordon has received numerous other awards including an NAACP Image Award and the Journalist of the Year Award from the National Association of Black Journalists.

The visiting lecture “master classes” are made possible through a grant from the FVSU Foundation’s Presidential Excellence Fund.