1. Eric Deggans Quoted in Associated Press Story

By Lily Caldwell
October 27, 2025

Eric Deggans, Knight Chair in Journalism and Media Ethics at Washington and Lee University, was recently quoted in a story published by the Associated Press titled "In Black columnist's firing, advocates fear decreasing diversity, vital perspectives in news media."

The story discusses the recent firing of former Washington Post opinion columnist Karen Attiah over her posts on the social media platform Bluesky about political violence in the wake of Charlie Kirk's killing. Attiah had been a journalist at The Washington Post for 11 years and was the only full-time Black member on the Post's opinion deck. Many media diversity advocates worry about the erasure of diverse perspectives in journalism and the removal of historically targeted voices.

"There's a lot of other public figures out there criticizing Black women unfairly," said Deggans in the article, commenting on the widespread nature of the issue. "I don't understand why the most extreme punishment is the first punishment. I don't understand why there's not an attempt to sort of talk with the employee and let them know what they did wrong."

Deggans recently served as an expert on journalistic ethics for additional pieces including a CNN segment titled "Trump threatens to sue ABC over Kimmel's return " and on an episode of the Commotion podcast titled "Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air - and he's making the most of it."

Deggans is in his first year as a faculty member at W&L. He is also a critic at large for NPR and chair of the media monitoring committee for the National Association of Black Journalists. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in journalism and political science at Indiana University Bloomington and served as an adjunct instructor at Duke University and Indiana University Bloomington before coming to W&L.

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