Pulitzer winner Meacham on campus Feb. 9

Jon Meacham

Pulitzer Prize-winning author, historian and journalist Jon Meacham will discuss presidential politics and his new book, The New York Times No. 1 best-seller “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush,” on Tuesday, Feb. 9, beginning at 4:30 pm at MTSU’s Student Union Ballroom. Meacham will be available to sign copies of his books after his talk.

He will be joined on stage by Ken Paulson, dean of the College of Media and Entertainment. Both are seasoned veterans directing news coverage of presidential campaigns and politics.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Paulson was editor-in-chief of USA TODAY, a position he held from 2004 to 2009. Meacham was editor-in-chief of Newsweek from 2006 to 2010.

Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the 46-year-old Meacham graduated from the University of the South in Sewanee.  He began his journalism career at The Chattanooga Times and was a former editor of The Washington Monthly before his tenure at Newsweek. Meacham received the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2009 for “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House.” An executive editor and executive vice president at Random House, he also is author of The New York Times best-sellers “Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power,” “American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation” and “Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship.”

The event will kick off The Pulitzer Prize Centennial Series at MTSU commemorating the 100th anniversary of The Pulitzer Prizes, which have honored excellence in journalism and the arts annually since 1917. The Feb. 9 event is presented by the John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies, the Tom T. Hall Writers Series and the College of Media and Entertainment.