Atlantic Editor Speaking At W&L
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic and author of the magazine’s “Signalgate” series, will come to Washington and Lee University for a talk focused on ethical leadership in journalism at a time of tremendous change.
Goldberg will appear with moderator/ host Eric Deggans, W&L’s Knight Chair of Journalism and Media Ethics, for a discussion titled “Journalism, Ethics and Leadership in the Modern Age” at 5:10 p.m. on March 17 in Stackhouse Theater in Elrod Commons.
The event marks the first collaboration between the Knight Institute and the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics — two on-campus institutions dedicated to the study and practice of ethics. This conversation between Deggans and Goldberg will be featured as part of the Mudd Center’s Leadership Lab — a series that seeks to generate and support thoughtful discussion about ethical leadership across professions within a globalized world.
The event is free and open to the public. The program will also be streamed online at https://go.wlu.edu/ livestream, and a recording will be available afterward.
Goldberg and Deggans will engage in a timely and wide-ranging conversation about the state of modern media and the importance of high-quality journalism in maintaining democracy through an informed citizenry. They will discuss the ethics of leading a newsroom in today’s complicated media and political environment, and how The Atlantic is seeking to provide more prominent leadership in political journalism amid turbulence at the Washington Post, CBS News and other mainstream news outlets.
The two will also talk about The Atlantic’s more impactful stories, including the 2025 “Signalgate” controversy, where Goldberg was included in a text chain on the messaging platform Signal that featured top officials from the Trump administration discussing an upcoming military operation.
Goldberg joined The Atlantic in 2007 as a national correspondent and was named the magazine’s 15th editor-inchief in 2016. During his editorship, The Atlantic won its first-ever Pulitzer Prizes, set new audience and subscription records and received the National Magazine Award for General Excellence from the American Society of Magazine Editors in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Deggans is a 35-year veteran in media and education and, in addition to his W&L faculty position, serves as critic at large for NPR. He is a member of the National Advisory Board for the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and is chair of the Media Monitoring Committee for the National Association of Black Journalists.
