Ellen Shearer is the William F. Thomas Professor of Journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.
She also is Executive Editor of Medill News Service in Washington and co-director of the Medill National Security Journalism initiative. She has written and taught extensively in the areas of political journalism, national security journalism and watchdog journalism.
She is co-author of the book “Nonvoters: America’s No-Shows”; created and edited, with colleagues, “Whistleblowers, Leaks and the Media” and “National Security Law in the News: A Guide for Journalists, Scholars and Policymakers,” both published by the American Bar Association Publishing; wrote chapters for six books on journalism; and produced a five-part online curriculum, “The James W. Foley Guide on Journalists’ Safety.”
Shearer is past president of the Washington Press Club Foundation and since 1999 has coordinated judging for the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual awards. She has served as an accreditor for the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. She is secretary of the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation.
Before joining the Medill faculty, Shearer was an editor at Newhouse News Service, a senior editor at Newsday in NewYork, a marketing executive at Reuters and New England Vice President for United Press International.
She began her career as a reporter for UPI in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She has a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s degree in interactive journalism from American University.
