Jack Nelson to be Remembered in Event at Carter Library

Scoop: The Evolution of a Southern Reporter (University Press of Mississippi) is the story of Jack Nelson’s life and his extraordinary career as a journalist. Nelson, an investigator whose rage for justice never abated, developed into what Bob Woodward regarded as “one of America’s toughest and greatest reporters.” 

On Wednesday, January 16, at 7:00pm in the Carter Presidential Library and Museum Theater in Atlanta Barbara Matusow, Nelson’s widow and editor of Scoop, will take part in a special panel discussion in a remembrance of Jack Nelson. 

Matusow will be joined by President Jimmy Carter, United States Ambassador Andrew Young, and Terry Adamson, former Justice Department spokesman in the Carter years and former VP of the National Geographic Society. The discussion will be moderated by Hank Klibanoff, the James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism at Emory University. Klibanoff also wrote the introduction to Scoop. The event is free and open to the public.  

Nelson (1929-2009), was the Washington Bureau Chief of the Los Angeles Times, won a Pulitzer Prize (1960), the Drew Pearson Award for Investigative Reporting (1975), and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award (1999).

The hour-long panel discussion will be immediately followed by a reception featuring a sampling of Nelson’s papers and readings from the book. Reading selections from Scoop will be Cynthia Tucker, Pulitzer Prize-winning former editor of the editorial page at the Atlanta Journal Constitution; Kevin Riley, editor of the Atlanta Journal Constitution; Rosemary Magee, director of the Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library at Emory's Woodruff Library; and Jim Bentley, a former colleague of Jack's at The Atlanta Constitution. 

Copies of Scoop will also be available for sale at this time.