KINGSTON, R.I. — March 5, 2015 — Longtime war reporter H.D.S. Greenway will talk about the international press during a lecture at the University of Rhode Island next month.
Greenway, also known as David, will deliver the Christiane Amanpour Lecture Wednesday, April 1 at 7 p.m. at the Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences, 120 Flagg Road, on the Kingston campus. The talk is free and open to the public.
John Pantalone, chair of the Department of Journalism, says Greenway is expected to talk about his 50-plus years of experience as a foreign correspondent in some of the most dangerous places in the world and how international coverage has changed over the years with the explosion of social media.
“We are fortunate to have someone of Mr. Greenway’s stature and experience coming to campus to share his insight with our students,” Pantalone said. “He brings a 50-year overview of international news and reporting, politics and foreign policy to his lectures. Our students benefit greatly from the Amanpour Lecture each year, and they always comment on how much they have learned from the speakers about reporting, international affairs and history.”
Greenway has a long career as a reporter and writer, most recently of the acclaimed memoir, “Foreign Correspondent,” which includes an exploration of American intrusion into foreign governments and memories of what it was like to be a war reporter before the days of being “embedded” with troops.
According to his publisher, Simon & Schuster, Greenway was a reporter at the White House the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and was in the jungles of Vietnam, where he was wounded. He was awarded a Bronze Star for rescuing a Marine.
He reported on the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, and he covered Anwar Sadat in Jerusalem, civil war in Lebanon, ethnic cleansing and genocide in the Balkans, and both Gulf Wars. He also covered civil wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Greenway retired from The Boston Globe after a distinguished career, most recently as its editorial page editor. He also worked as a foreign and national editor at the Globe, creating bureaus in London, Tokyo, Canada, Moscow, Latin America and Jerusalem. He worked for the Washington Post and Time. He was educated at Yale and Oxford, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard.
This annual lecture, named for the 1983 URI alum and 1995 honorary degree recipient, was created following a generous gift from Amanpour in 2006, establishing an endowment to fund an annual journalism lecture in perpetuity at URI. Amanpour is the chief international correspondent for CNN International. She is also the anchor of Amanpour, a nightly foreign affairs program on CNN International..
The speaker series, in its 7th year, helps URI bring well-respected journalists to campus. The lecture is sponsored by the Department of Journalism and the Harrington School of Communication and Media.
Photo above: David Greenway, a longtime foreign correspondent, will speak April 1 at the University of Rhode Island for the annual Christiane Amanpour Lecture in International Journalism. Photo by Mike Minehan.