Will address award’s topic: corporate lobbying of attorneys general

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eric Lipton, a 1987 UVM graduate, will speak at the University of Vermont on Sept. 21 at 7 p.m. in the Silver Maple Ballroom in the Davis Center. The talk is free and open to the public. No tickets are required.

Lipton’s talk, “Lobbying in America: White Hats, State Troopers, Ski Resorts and Buckets of Money,” will feature highlights from his groundbreaking series of articles about the corporate lobbying of state attorneys general and the money-fueled world of influence in which they operate.

Lipton, a former editor of UVM’s student newspaper, the Vermont Cynic, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author who has spent the last decade in the Washington bureau of the New York Times.

His reporting exposed that attorneys general nationwide have been increasingly targeted by lobbyists trying to influence investigations and negotiate favorable business deals.

While attorneys general are elected to serve and protect consumers as lawyers for the public interest, Lipton’s work reveals numerous examples of lobbyists attempting to influence the outcome of public investigations. Special interests, Lipton says, push their agendas on topics as varied as GMO foods, securities fraud, gas fracking and prescription drugs. 

For the series of three stories, published in the fall of 2014, Lipton reviewed more than 6,000 emails obtained through open records laws in more than two dozen states. He also conducted interviews with dozens of participants in cases where corporate representatives had close relationships with and opportunities to influence decisions made by attorneys general.

Lipton’s series won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism, the Investigative Reporters and Editors award for large circulation newspapers, and the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.

Lipton’s talk will deconstruct several of his New York Times news articles on the topic, and he will explain from the inside how they came about.

The event is co-sponsored by UVM and VTDigger, an independent, investigative news organization covering Vermont.

PUBLISHED

09-17-2015
University Communications