Les Payne, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, is a columnist for Newsday. The paper’s recent associate editor was responsible for national/foreign and health & science news at the paper for a quarter century; he also served as Newsday’s New York Editor. His news staffs won every major award in journalism, including six Pulitzer Prizes.
The author, editor, and social critic delivered the prestigious H. L. Mencken Lecture at the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. He lectures frequently about social and political issues, the future of journalism, African art, and the life and death of Malcolm X.
The Inaugural Professor for the David Laventhol Chair, at Columbia U. Graduate School of Journalism, Payne has received three honorary doctorate degrees, including one from his alma mater, the University of Connecticut, where he delivered the ’03 Commencement Address to the graduating class, at Storrs, Ct.
