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Photograph of Lynne Perri

Lynne Perri Journalist in Residence SOC - Journalism

Additional Positions at AU
Managing Editor/Investigative Reporting Workshop
Senior Professorial Lecturer
Degrees
Bachelor of Arts, University of South Carolina; Master's degree, Medill School of Journalism

Bio
Lynne Perri is a journalist-in-residence and senior professorial lecturer at American University, and she is also managing editor of the Investigative Reporting Workshop, our independent newsroom at SOC.

IRW is an editorially independent, nonprofit newsroom based at AU that partners with The Washington Post and other legacy and online media outlets.


She teaches reporting, visual journalism and journalism ethics, and she took students to New Hampshire and South Carolina in 2020 to cover the early primaries. The experiential learning trips were components of an elections class she co-created in which students traveled to New Hampshire in 2008, 2012 and 2016 as well.


She was awarded Outstanding Service to the University Community for 2020 and also received the School of Communication's 2020 Award for Inclusive Excellence.

Additional service includes co-creating the partnership between AU and Politico that led to the Politico Journalism Institute, in which a diverse cohort of students comes to Washington in the summer for an intensive workshop on how to cover politics and public policy.


Before joining American University, she worked as a reporter and editor at several newspapers, including the Tallahassee Democrat and The Tampa Tribune. She later immersed herself in visual journalism as a deputy managing editor for Graphics and Photography at USA TODAY, where she also wrote features and book reviews. 


She has been an adjunct professor at Syracuse, Northwestern, the University of Maryland and the University of South Florida, and a visiting lecturer at the University of Iowa, Ohio University and the University of Nebraska. She has led workshops for The Washington Post, the Knight Center for International Journalists, the American Press Institute and the Society for News Design.
See Also
MediaShift: On the presidential campaign
Interviewing: A Practical Guide for Citizen Journalists
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

Spring 2023

  • COMM-323 Raking the Muck

  • COMM-417 Fundamentals of News Design

Fall 2023

  • COMM-323 Raking the Muck

  • COMM-409 Journalism Ethics

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Research Interests

How the visual display of news in print, online and on TV affects understanding and retention.

Grants and Sponsored Research

  • Citizen media: Professors Perri and Angie Chuang received a 2008 grant from J-Lab, funded by the Knight Foundation, to develop a training module for citizen journalists on how to interview.
  • TV: Professors Perri and Dotty Lynch created a partnership between Link TV and the School of Communication to find new sources of public opinion data and innovative ways to illustrate it. They focused on global attitudes toward the Iraq War, climate change and women in leadership. The segments  aired in spring 2007. The project was funded by the Center for Social Media and the Ford Foundation.

Professional Services

Visual Journalism Seminars

Design and Graphics packages 

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

  • Judge for the college entries to the RFK annual journalism awards.

Selected Publications

Mothers and Children, National Geographic Society, March 2009, a new photo book for which Professor Perri wrote the introduction

The Weather Book, Knopf, 1997, a publication of USA TODAY; Professor Perri was an editor on the project.

Quoted in "8 Lessons in the Art of Teaching Journalism Online" Mediashift.