Knight Chair in Investigative & Enterprise Reporting
Professor Brant Houston holds the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Chair in Investigative and Enterprise Reporting and teaches investigative and advanced reporting in the Department of Journalism at Illinois. Houston became the chair after serving as executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors, a 4,000-member organization, and as a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Before joining IRE, he was an award-winning investigative reporter at daily newspapers for 17 years.
The Knight Foundation says the chair holders are "professional journalists who inspire excellence; collaborators who reach out and innovate; catalysts around whom universities can build expanded programs; visionaries who strive to improve American journalism." There are chairs at only 21 universities in the United States.
Houston succeeded William Gaines, who retired in August 2007 and is now professor emeritus at Illinois. Gaines, who wrote a textbook on journalism, taught students to engage in projects such as identifying the worst-performing state-level judge in America and creating how-to guides on specific topics related to investigative reporting.
Houston was part of the newsroom staff of The Kansas City Star that won a Pulitzer Prize for its work on the 1981 walkway collapse at the city's Hyatt Regency Hotel, and he was one of four investigative team members that won a Headliners Award for its work on misconduct by Kansas City area building inspectors.
At The Hartford Courant, he won awards for investigations into state and federal government programs and was the paper’s database editor. During 14 years at IRE, Houston oversaw the creation of numerous training programs nationally and internationally and also helped it strengthen and increase its membership.
Houston is also the author of three editions of the textbook, "Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Practical Guide," and co-author of the fourth edition of "The Investigative Reporter's Handbook." Houston co-founded the Global Investigative Journalism Network in the year 2000. Currently he is working on projects involving international investigative journalism, ethnic media newsrooms and new technologies for newsgathering.
During 2006 and 2007, Donnie Forti, graduate student in journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, assisted in the creation of the content in these pages.
Questions or comments about the Knight Chair?
Please contact Professor Brant Houston at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.