The Harry M. & Edel Y. Ayers Lecture Series began in 1988 as collaboration between The Anniston Star and JSU. It is named in honor of Brandt Ayers’ parents, who were past publishers of The Star. The series brings esteemed journalists from all over the world to discuss current media issues. Past Ayers Lecturers include Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times; Alberto Ibargüen, president, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; Kevin Klose, president and chief executive of National Public Radio; Doug Marlette, Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist; Judy Woodruff, CNN senior correspondent; Howell Raines, former New York Times editor and Pulitzer Prize winner; and Rick Bragg, Pulitzer Prize winning author and former JSU student who began his career at a Consolidated Publishing Co., newspaper, The Jacksonville News.
Brandt Ayers’ journalism career extends far beyond his position as chairman and publisher of the Star, “one of the best small newspapers in the United States,” according to Time magazine. A graduate of the University of Alabama, Ayers served two years in the United States Navy before embarking on his career. Among his first journalism assignments was that of a capitol and legislative reporter for the Raleigh Times in North Carolina. He was also a Washington correspondent for Southern newspapers in the early 1960s. During 1967-68 he was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and in 1990, he was a Gannett Fellow at Columbia University. He was awarded the Doctorate of Humane Letters by the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1996.
In 1998, Ayers was featured as the cover story of American Journalism Review magazine. In addition to his interest in the Star, Ayers is co-owner of The Daily Home of Talladega, The Jacksonville (Alabama) News, The Cleburne News, The Piedmont Journal and the St. Clair Times. Ayers also writes a syndicated column entitled “Out Here” carried by some thirty newspapers. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Southern Living, the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post. He is a former commentator for “Morning Edition,” National Public Radio.
Ayers has received numerous awards from national and state civic, educational and social organizations, including the Alabama Academy of Honor, which recognizes the accomplishments of 100 living Alabamians. He has traveled widely in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East on governmental and journalistic missions. He is a trustee of the American Committee of the International Press Institute, Vienna, and on the advisory board of the Ditchley Foundation, London. He has lectured on foreign and domestic affairs at Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Capetown, Natal University, and the University of Nairobi. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, a trustee of the Southern Center for International Studies, and was appointed by President Carter to the Board of Foreign Scholarships (the International Fulbright Board.)
In 2002, Ayers fulfilled a longtime dream with his founding of World Affairs Journalism Fellowship Program, travel grants for reporting abroad by regional newspaper editors, and also in 2002 received the Tutwiler Distinguished Service Award from The University of Alabama. In December 2002 the Ayers Institute was founded to help outstanding journalism students from throughout the United States earn a master’s degree while working at the Star.
In April 2003 he was given the Award for Editorial Leadership by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. That same year, he received the Alabama Press Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
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