Eugene Robinson – Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and political analyst at MSNBC – will present the Fall 2025 Manatt-Phelps Lecture, “Revolution or Evolution? A Media Transformed and Its Impact on You” on Oct. 1 at 6 p.m. in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union. The event is free and open to the public.
“Changes to media and changing perceptions of media have had massive impacts on politics,” said Alex Tuckness, chair of the Department of Political Science, which sponsors the annual event. “We are honored to have one of the most prominent journalists in America share his perspective on this transformation.”
Robinson began his career at The Washington Post in 1980 as a city hall reporter, eventually serving as assistant city editor, South America correspondent, London bureau chief, and foreign editor.
In 2005, he moved to the Post’s Op-Ed page as a politics and culture columnist, a position he held until April 2025. His columns were syndicated to 262 newspapers, and in 2009 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his columns on the presidential election of Barack Obama.
Robinson has also been an MSNBC political analyst since 2008 and is a frequent guest on NBC’s Meet the Press, CNN, and other news outlets. He is the author of three books: “Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America” (2010), “Last Dance in Havana” (2004), and “Coal to Cream: A Black Man’s Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race” (1999).
Robinson earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, where he was the first Black student to serve as co-editor-in-chief of the award-winning student newspaper, The Michigan Daily.
“Mr. Robinson will add an important voice to the university’s America at 250 celebration by highlighting the media’s important role in democracy,” said Karen M. Kedrowski, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, co-director of the Center for Cyclone Civics, and professor of political science. Since 2016, the Catt Center has worked with the Manatt family to bring speakers to campus for the lecture.
Co-sponsors of this year’s lecture are the Department of Political Science, Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, Center for Cyclone Civics, and Committee on Lectures (funded by Student Government).
The Manatt-Phelps Lecture series, established in 2002 by the late Ambassador Charles T. Manatt and Kathleen Manatt and Thomas and Elizabeth Phelps, brings to campus a prominent practitioner or scholar to address the ISU community on issues of significance to the United States and to Iowa.