UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — All journalists will face ethical dilemmas during their career, and Don Hudson, an award-winning and barrier-breaking journalist who spent 43 years in the media industry, will offer tips on how to avoid a lot of those dilemmas during the annual Oweida Lecture in Journalism Ethics at Penn State.
Hudson’s free public lecture and question-and-answer session is scheduled at 6 p.m. March 4 in Foster Auditorium of Paterno Library.
Hudson retired from Newsday, the eighth-largest multimedia organization in the country, in November 2024 after serving as the organization’s editor since 2022, and its assistant managing editor of specialty topics since 2018. During his tenure, he led the company’s COVID-19 coverage and watched the staff of more than 250 win an unprecedented number of awards. He helped transform and change the culture of the organization through digital, TV and investigations/enterprise.
Hudson, who worked for several media companies — including Cox, Gannett and Tribune — during his career, also will offer insight into where the industry stands and where it’s headed during one of the most challenging times in history.
Hudson earned bachelor’s degree in radio/television from the University of Louisiana at Monroe and then worked as a reporter and editor at various publications. His career included positions at the Orlando Sentinel, followed by time with Gannett Co. Inc. in Tennessee, Michigan and Mississippi, where he contributed to civil rights coverage that was named as a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.