Eric Deggans

Eric Deggans is the Knight Professor of Journalism and Media Ethics at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, overseeing classes on media issues, ethics and journalism.

As a Knight Chair, Deggans joins a collection of 25 other professors in positions endowed at 23 different universities across the country by the Knight Foundation.

Deggans also serves as a critic-at-large at NPR, appearing on shows such as Morning Edition and All Things Considered, writing for NPR.org and appearing on podcasts such as Pop Culture Happy Hour. He moved into this role in late 2025 after serving 12 years as the first full-time TV critic, media analyst and guest host hired by the network.

Deggans is also a guest instructor and member of the National Advisory Board for the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, FL. His work as a guest host/interviewer includes stints on CNN’s media analysis show Reliable Sources and the entertainment industry podcast/radio program, The Business.

In April 2024, he was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame, an honor which came just a few years after he earned the Distinguished Alumni Award from Indiana University, where he graduated with a double major in Political Science and Journalism in 1990.

And in 2019, Deggans served as the first African American chair of the jurors who select the George Foster Peabody Awards for excellence in electronic media.

He came to NPR in September 2013 from the Tampa Bay Times newspaper in Florida, where he served as TV/Media Critic and in other roles for nearly 20 years. A journalist for more than two decades, he is also the author of Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation, a look at how prejudice, racism and sexism fuels some elements of modern media, published in October 2012 by Palgrave Macmillan.

He guest hosted CNN’s media analysis show Reliable Sources several times in fall 2013, joining a select group of journalists and media critics filling in for departed host Howard Kurtz. That year, he also earned the Florida Press Club’s first-ever Diversity award, honoring his coverage of issues involving race and media. He has received Legacy awards from both the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Black Journalists’ A&E Task Force. The NABJ’s award was an honor bestowed to “seasoned A&E journalists who are at the top of their careers.” Eric also serves on the board of educators, journalists and media experts who select the George Foster Peabody Awards for excellence in electronic media.

He also has joined a prestigious group of contributors to the first ethics book created in a partnership between Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Developed as Poynter’s first ethics book for the digital age, The New Ethics of Journalism was published in August 2013 by Sage/CQ Press. He has also been named a distinguished alumnus of Indiana University, featured in their Luminaries program in late 2015.

Named in 2009 as one of Ebony magazine’s “Power 150” – a list of influential black Americans which also included Oprah Winfrey and PBS host Gwen Ifill – he was selected to lecture at Columbia University’s prestigious Graduate School of Journalism in 2008 and 2005. In November 2015, he spent several days lecturing at Indiana University as part of its IU Luminaries program, in which students choose notable alumni to return for a three-day visit and in 2016 he was named a distinguished alumnus of IU’s Media School of journalism and communications. He has also lectured or taught as an adjunct professor at DePaul University, Loyola University, George Washington University, California State University, University of Tampa, Eckerd College and many other colleges.

He has also served as keynote speaker for several groups, including the Florida Library Association, the National High School Journalism Association and the International Communication Association, along with moderating a panel with producers and stars of The Walking Dead series for the Smithsonian.

His writing has also appeared in the New York Times online, Ebony magazine, POLITICO, ESPN’s The Undefeated website, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon magazine, CNN.com, the Washington Post, Village Voice, VIBE magazine, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, Emmy magazine, Newsmax magazine, Rolling Stone Online and a host of other newspapers across the country.