Elijah Parish Lovejoy Visiting Journalist Maureen Orth: Up Against the Power of Fame

Posted by: Noah VanValkenburg (navanval@colby.edu) on Fri, March 18, 2011, 11:13 a.m.

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A special correspondent for Vanity Fair since 1993, Maureen Orth is known for her investigations on pop stars and political icons. She has interviewed a wide range of controversial celebrities and leaders including: Vladimir Putin, Margaret Thatcher, Gerry Adams, Madonna and Carla Bruni.

Her investigative stories are exhaustive and detailed. She has written on the allegations of sexual abuse by Michael Jackson and child abuse by Woody Allen. She has also reported on everything from Columbia’s hostage wars to the link between terrorism and drugs in Central Asia.

Orth began her journalism career at Newsweek in 1973, where she was the third female writer ever hired by the national magazine. The entertainment editor and the lifestyle editor, Orth won a National Magazine Award for group coverage of the arts. She also was nominated for a National Magazine Award for her article on Michael and Arianna Huffington, which appeared in Vanity Fair. During her career, Orth has also written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and Esquire.

Orth is the author of Vulgar Favors (Delacorte Press, 1999), a book about the murder of Gianni Versace, and The Importance of Being Famous (Henry Holt, 2002), a collection of her Vanity Fair articles with updates and commentary.

The widow of Tim Russert, Orth is also the founder of the Marina Orth Foundation and Escuela Marina Orth in Medellín, Colombia, which she began as a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s. It is now the first One Laptop Per Child school in Colombia.

Orth's address took place in Ostrove Auditorium at 7PM on Monday, March 14.

The Lovejoy Journalist In Residence Program is made possible by a grant from the Knight Foundation, and brings journalists to campus to give public lectures and speak in classes. Visiting journalists will meet with students and aspiring journalists to explore and develop the themes raised by the year's winner of Colby's Lovejoy Award for courageous journalism.