The College of Arts and Sciences will bring three Zubrow Distinguished Visiting Journalists (DVJ) to campus this semester: Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, New York Times White House correspondent Zolan Kanno-Youngs and ProPublica investigative reporter and Pulitzer finalist and Oscar nominee Keri Blakinger ’14.
“This will be a remarkable semester, with three outstanding journalists on campus,” said Peter John Loewen, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts and Sciences. “They will each bring unique insights on issues of the day, including immigration, policing and democracy. We are very fortunate to have the alumni support to bring such accomplished journalists to campus.”
The DVJ program brings leading journalists to Cornell each semester to meet with faculty, staff and students.
Stephens will be on campus March 6-7. He will participate in a public event on March 6 at 4:30 p.m. in the Rhodes-Rawling Auditorium in Klarman Hall. “On Democracy, Conservatism and Journalism: A Conversation with Bret Stephens” will be a wide-ranging conversation with Seth Klarman ’79, CEO and portfolio manager of The Baupost Group and 2026 Hatfield Fellow.
Since joining the New York Times in 2017, Stephens has written about foreign policy, domestic politics and cultural issues. He won the Pulitzer in 2013 for his commentary at the Wall Street Journal, and previously served as editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post. He has reported stories from Gaza to Greenland, and is the author of “America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder,” published in 2014.
Kanno-Youngs will be on campus March 16-20. On March 17 he’ll participate in a public event, “Reporting on the White House: View from the Inside,” about his work covering immigration, homeland security, criminal justice and inequality.
Loewen will serve as interlocutor; the event begins at 5 p.m. and will be held in Hollis Auditorium in Goldwin Smith Hall.
On March 18, Kanno-Youngs will be joined by Robin Young, host of NPR’s “Here and Now,” for a conversation about their careers. Kanno-Youngs joined the New York Times in 2019 to cover the Department of Homeland Security. He moved to the White House beat in 2021. Kanno-Youngs was one of the reporters who sat down with President Donald Trump for a two-hour interview in the Oval Office in January, which Kanno-Youngs will describe during the March 17 event with Loewen.
Blakinger will be on campus from April 20 to May 1, and will participate in a public event on policing and incarceration. An English major at Cornell, she was part of the producing team that received an Oscar nomination for the short documentary “I Am Ready, Warden.” She was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist twice: as part of a Houston Chronicle team covering Hurricane Harvey and when she worked with the Marshall Project in 2024, for her feature story, “The Dungeons & Dragons players of Texas Death Row,” which also ran in the New York Times.
As an investigative reporter for ProPublica, Blakinger covers criminal justice, with a focus on prisons and the death penalty. She previously worked for the Los Angeles Times, covering the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. She is the author of “Corrections in Ink,” a memoir of her life before, during and after prison.
The Distinguished Visiting Journalist program is funded through an endowment from Jan Rock Zubrow ’77 and Barry Zubrow, as well as additional philanthropic support from Carol MacCorkle ’64, Jay Branegan ’72, Rose Gutfeld Edwards ’78 and the Dr. Guinevere Griest ’44 Fund for Public Engagement in A&S.
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