Book Signing to Follow
Kevin Merida, an associate editor of The Washington Post, has been writing about politics and government for more than 25 years. He has covered the White House, the Congress and reported on or supervised the coverage of five presidential campaigns. His specialty is long-form feature writing, especially portraits of difficult subjects: George W. Bush’s intellect, Strom Thurmond’s age, Bob Dole’s divorce, the fall of Newt Gingrich, Dan Quayle’s frustration at not being taken seriously, Hillary Clinton as the wife of Bill.
Merida has been a syndicated columnist for the Post’s Sunday Magazine and an analyst for network television and radio programs. He also is a former writer and editor for The Dallas Morning News and The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
A Boston University graduate, Merida has won numerous awards, including being named “Journalist of the Year” in 2000 by the National Association of Black Journalists. Merida was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1990 as part of a Dallas Morning News team reporting on the world’s “hidden wars.”
Michael A. Fletcher is a White House correspondent for The Washington Post, where has covered the Bush administration since the outset of the president’s second term. Previously, he has covered national education policy, writing about such issues as the racial achievement gap, the No Child Left Behind legislation, the nation’s growing reliance on standardized tests and the battle over race-conscious college admissions. Before that, Fletcher worked five years as the Post’s national race relations reporter. In that job, he wrote about a wide array of issues, including the impact of Latino immigration on black economic and political power in Los Angeles, Asian-American ambivalence toward affirmative action and motorists who felt singled out by police for “driving while black.”
Prior to coming to The Post in 1995, Fletcher worked 13 years for The Baltimore Sun covering local schools, city government and statewide politics. He also has written for several national publications, including The Crisis, Savoy, Code and Emerge magazines. A New York City native and Boston University graduate, Fletcher has appeared as a guest on numerous radio and television programs, including NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” BET’s “Lead Story,” PBS’s “Washington Week,” MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” Washington Post radio and several BBC broadcasts.
Errata: During the interview of Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher on April 25th, 2007, Professor Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., in describing Justice Clarence Thomas’ rise from poverty to the Supreme Court, inadvertently said Alger Hiss when he was referring to Horatio Alger. Professor Ogletree apologizes for this mistake.
Press
- Supreme Court’s predictable ‘rebel’ – Boston Globe Op-Ed By Ellen Goodman
