2007 Visiting Journalist:
Barbara Walsh

Before Barbara Walsh graduated from UNH in 1981, she flunked one of her journalism classes because she missed a deadline. So when she returned to spend the week of April 16, 2007, on campus as the Donald Murray Visiting Journalist , she titled her public talk “From Failure to Pulitzer."

In fact, the Pulitzer Prize is only the beginning of the list of awards Barbara has received. A passion for fairness and giving voice to the voiceless has propelled her career. In 10 years at the Portland Press Herald, her work launched state and federal investigations, changed laws, sparked fundraisers and public action meetings, and altered people's attitudes toward teenagers, the poor, and the mentally ill. Her projects involved such subjects as alcohol abuse, rural poverty, mental health care for children, domestic violence and teen suicide.

Barbara was one of two principal reporters at the Lawrence, Mass., Eagle Tribune who worked on a year-long series about Willie Horton Jr., a convicted killer and furlough escapee whose crimes drew attention to the flawed Massachusetts prison system. The series won a 1988 Pulitzer Prize. How she did it, in her own words.

“The Horton story taught me how much power and responsibility journalists have,” Barbara told the group gathered for her speech. “In the decades since, I have learned how stories can transform lives and inform people about what is going on in their town, their state and their country. I’ve learned that people and politicians will react to these stories, that they’ll demand change and make change if you tell them why these stories matter.”

After winning the Pulitzer in Massachusetts, Barbara moved to Florida, where she covered courts and social services for seven years for the Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale. Moving to Portland in 1996, she began investigating major social issues. In 1997 she was part of a four-person team that produced "The Deadliest Drug: Maine's Addiction to Alcohol," a series that resulted in dozens of public forums around the state in which citizens brainstormed ways to solve the problems. In 1999 her series "A Stolen Soul," about a woman's struggle to bring her son's murderer to justice, won the national Dart Award for excellence in reporting on victims of violence.

In 2000 and 2001 Barb spent 15 months interviewing hundreds of Maine teenagers for a series of print and online pieces called "On the Verge." She held pizza parties for kids, gave them disposable cameras to record their lives, and generally immersed herself in their world to become "as invisible as a 40-year-old pregnant woman could," she says. "On the Verge" won the Casey Medal, the top national prize for coverage of children and families. It also received an honorable mention for the Batten Award for excellence in civic journalism; the Pew Center called the stories "a stunningly framed and written series about teens that broke free of stereotypes."

In 2003 Barbara won more awards for "Castaway Children: Maine's Most Vulnerable Kids," which showed the need for more children's mental health services in Maine. The stories led to hearings and legislative changes at both the state and federal levels. The series won the national Anna Quindlen Award for Excellence in Journalism in Behalf of Children and Families, given by the Child Welfare League of America, as well as the first media award given by the New England Juvenile Defender's Center. It was also a finalist for the Casey Medal and the Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Award. These projects and others -- including "Death Too Soon," on youth suicide, and "Crisis in the Courts" on the way faulty record-keeping deters justice -- have also won numerous state and regional awards and led to many local initiatives.

Barbara and her husband, journalist Eric Conrad, and their two daughter live in Maine, where Barbara now focuses on freelance writing. She is working on a book about the Newfoundland fishing community and an infamous storm that killed four members of her extended family. She is also writing a children's book.

2006 Visiting Journalist Jackie MacMullan

2005 Visiting Journalist Ron Winslow

“I was inspired by the passion and curiosity of the students enrolled in the journalism classes. They were eager to learn about reporting and telling stories that make a difference. They asked insightful questions and genuinely cared about the answers. They even fought washed-out roads to get to campus on a day when school was technically closed.”

The 2007 Donald Murray
Visiting Journalist: Barbara Walsh, '81

2007 Visiting Journalist: Barbara Walsh

2007 Visiting Journalist:
Barbara Walsh