Thinking Out Loud: New Astronomy Acheivements

Lee Wilkins, co-host of Thinking Out Loud, is a professor emerita of journalism at the University of Missouri. She taught at MU from 1990 through 2013 where she earned a Kemper Award for teaching and was later named a Curator’s Distinguished Teaching Professor. Her research focuses on media ethics and media coverage of hazards and disasters; she is the co-author—along with MU grad Chad Painter (now at the University of Dayton) and Professor Philip Patterson (Oklahoma Christian University)—of Media Ethics: Issues and Cases, now in its 9th edition (published by Rowman and Littlefield). She is the author, co-author and editor of additional books, among them The Moral Media: How Journalists Reason about Ethics (with MU alum Professor Renita Coleman, now at the University of Texas-Austin) and the Handbook of Mass Media Ethics, edited with Clifford Christians, University of Illinois. Her scholarship has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and most recently the World Health Organization. She retired from MU in 2013 to become the chair of the Department of Communication at Wayne State University in Detroit. She holds emeritus status from Wayne State as well. She earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oregon, a masters in journalism from that institution, and a bachelor of arts and a bachelor of journalism from MU. KBIA listeners may recognize her voice from her 15 years of work as a panelist on Views of the News. She and her husband David Black, a retired Columbia Public School teacher, live in Boone County near Rocheport along with their three border terriers and their bee hives. Lee’s beats for Thinking Out Loud include the arts, politics, and anything else she finds might be of community-wide interest. She may be reached at: wilkinsl@missouri.edu.

"The Voice Of Columbia," Darren Hellwege has hosted NPR's “Morning Edition” for over 30 years on KBIA, and serves as host/producer of the award-winning “Thinking Out Loud” programs. He also hosts “Vox Humana” on Classical 90.5 FM. Darren is also a marketing representative for KBIA and Classical 90.5, helping businesses connect with their customers using public radio.