1/31/2003

Contact: K.E. Schwab  -- 724-738-2199;  e-mail: karl.schwab@sru.edu

AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST TO DISCUSS WRONGFUL PROSECUTIONS AT SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY LECTURE; PUBLIC IS WELCOME

           SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – Investigative journalist Bill Moushey, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, will share his insight into wrongful prosecutions when he gives a free speech at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday [Feb. 4] at Slippery Rock University's Spotts World Culture Building. The public is invited.

          Moushey’s 1998 book "Win at All Costs" won regional and national awards for documenting how overzealous federal agents and prosecutors broke the law in their zeal to enforce it. The visit is sponsored by the Center for Applied Ethics in SRU’s philosophy department along with the departments of government and public affairs; communication; sociology, anthropology and social; and the College of Humanities, Fine and Performing Arts.

          He founded the "Innocence Project of Western Pennsylvania" along with undergraduate journalism students. Participants research cases in which inmates may have been wrongly convicted. The project is housed in the journalism and mass communication department at Point Park College where Moushey teaches. 

          The writer holds one of two National Press Club’s Freedom of Information Awards. He was considered for the Pulitzer in 1997 for his expose of what was termed an out-of-control federal witness protection program. He has also written on organized crime, health-care conditions in Pennsylvania and a series of stories that resulted in the first impeachment of a sitting Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice as well as the conviction of a Pittsburgh City Council president.

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