Four distinguished OU Daily alums will speak on campus next month about how the skills they developed in Copeland Hall in the 1980s helped them forge careers that have resonated around the state, nation and world.
They are returning with fellow alumni from 1983-87 for a reunion, visit to the Daily and public panel discussion in Gaylord Hall’s auditorium from 2-3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 6. While the event is geared toward media-interested students in Gaylord College, all are welcome to attend.
The panelists include:
• David S. Fallis, the investigations editor for The Washington Post
• Ellen Knickmeyer, who covered foreign policy and national security for The Associated Press
• Quraysh Ali Lansana, a professor of English/Creative Writing and Media Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he is also director of the African American Studies program and the Media Lab
• Hanna Bolte, a communications and marketing executive whose career is rooted in music, entertainment and sports.
More on the panelists:
David Fallis began as a police reporter at the Tulsa Tribune. When the Tribune folded, he reported for the Tulsa World, where he eventually edited and ran investigative projects.
In 1999, he joined the Post as an investigative reporter and, in 2014, became an editor. He was promoted last year to lead the Post’s investigative department. Notable work at the Post includes a 2015 examination of fatal shootings by police, which he co-edited and that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting. Five projects he edited or reported have been Pulitzer Prize finalists, including one using a confidential database to reveal how drug companies flooded the country with 76 billion pain pills as opioid overdose deaths climbed.
He also edited The Afghanistan Papers, a 2019 investigation based on secret documents revealing officials in three administrations lied about the 18-year military campaign. Last year, his reporters helped investigate the Trump administration’s chaotic attempts to overhaul the federal government. That coverage won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
Ellen Knickmeyer most recently served as an adjunct lecturer on foreign policy and national security news reporting at Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies.
Knickmeyer previously was the Riyadh-based correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, the Cairo and Baghdad bureau chief for The Washington Post and the West Africa bureau chief and Rome correspondent for the AP. She covered the Arab Spring from Egypt, Tunisia and Libya for Foreign Policy, Vanity Fair and others under Pulitzer Center grants.
Knickmeyer received a master’s in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2009-10.
Quraysh Ali Lansana is the author of over 25 books in poetry, nonfiction and children’s literature. He is the executive producer of KOSU/NPR’s monthly radio program, which is a recipient of a 2022 duPont-Columbia Award, a 2022 NAACP Image Award, a 2022 Oklahoma Society of Professional Journalists Award and was a Peabody Award nominee.
Lansana is also the recipient of a 2022 Emmy Award, a 2022 Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters Award, among others, for his roles as host and consultant for the OETA (PBS) documentary film “Tulsa Race Massacre: 100 Years Later.”
His most recent books include Killing the Negative: A Conversation in Art & Verse) and Opal’s Greenwood Oasis.
Hanna Bolte, CEO/Principal of Bolte Media, has led award-winning, audience-driving campaigns and strategy across media, TV, independent film, digital media platforms, sports, events and film festivals.
Her work has driven an annual earned media value and impact of $1 million and an annual earned media reach in the billions. A native of Hawaii, she earned her bachelor’s in journalism and public relations from OU and is also an alumna of the Haas School of Business Executive Education program at the University of California, Berkeley. She completed executive studies at Instituto Internacional de Cuernavaca in Mexico and the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University. She holds the Accreditation in Public Relations designation from the Public Relations Society of America.
In addition, she is an active member of the National Association of Television Arts & Sciences and the Gaylord College Board of Visitors.
