A Pulitzer Prize-winning database research editor will speak to two journalism classes Tuesday, Sept. 18, at the West Virginia University Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism (SOJ).
Margot Williams, now a database research editor at The New York Times specializing in computer-assisted reporting, won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for national affairs for her contributions to team coverage of the 9/11 aftermath and terrorism while at the Washington Post.
She also won the 1999 Pulitzer Public Service Award at the Post for an investigative team project on deadly force shooting of civilians by Washington, D.C., police. From 1995 to 2000, Williams wrote a column about the Internet for the Post’s business technology section.
Since coming to The Times in 2004, she has contributed reporting and research to local, national, political and foreign stories and investigative projects.
Williams will give a presentation at the SOJ to a public affairs reporting class and a media writing class about how public records can be used for investigative journalism to locate and background people, companies and agencies and for authoritative fact-checking.
She is a graduate of the City College of New York and received a master’s degree in library and information science from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. She is the co-author of two books: “Great Scouts! CyberGuides for Subject Searching on the Web” (1999) and “Cuba from Columbus to Castro” (1981).
Williams is a member of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) and the Special Libraries Association (SLA) News Division.
She is a frequent speaker and trainer for her own newsroom colleagues and the IRE, SLA, Poynter Institute, Knight Program at Ohio State University, National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, American Press Institute, Freedom Forum and numerous other conferences and seminars.