Ken Paulson, former “USA Today” editor and president of the Newseum in Washington, D.C., will give a lecture on the First Amendment at the University of West Florida Main Campus March 4.  

The lecture, “Rebooting American: The First Amendment and a New Generation,” is in honor of Fred and Jane Seligman of Pensacola and will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Center for Fine and Performing Arts Music Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

 

Paulson will also hold a conversation hour with UWF students March 4 at 3 p.m. in Room 191 of Building 36. The conversation hour is sponsored by the Honors Program, the Department of Communication Arts and the Department of Government.

 

Paulson is an attorney and former executive director of the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, where he was an adjunct professor in the law school. The Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan foundation, advocates free press and speech rights. Paulson was editor of “USA Today” from 2004 until 2008 and previously edited other Gannett newspapers in five states, including “Florida Today” in Brevard County. He is widely known both for his efforts to educate the public about First Amendment freedoms and as a strong advocate of ethics guidelines and tougher polices concerning the use of confidential sources by newspapers.

For more information, contact Jane Halonen, dean of the UWF College of Arts and Sciences, at (850) 474-2112.

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