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National political reporter Peter Boyer to headline Oct. 19 Overby Center event

Posted on: October 16th, 2018 by ldrucker

Showtime in American Politics: Boyer Headlines Next Overby Center Event

Peter Boyer, a nationally-known political reporter, will lead a discussion about the upcoming Congressional elections in a special program at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics next Friday, Oct. 19, at 11 a.m.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place in the Overby Center Auditorium on the Ole Miss campus.

A native of the Mississippi Gulf Coast who attended Ole Miss, Boyer now serves as national correspondent for The Weekly Standard. His career has included important stints at The New Yorker magazine, Newsweek, and Fox News.

He first gained prominence as a correspondent for the PBS documentary series, “Frontline,” where he won an Emmy and a George Foster Peabody award for his reporting.

“Peter Boyer has been one of the finest journalists in America for decades,” said Stephen F. Hayes, editor-in-chief at The Weekly Standard. “He is the kind of reporter that ambitious young journalists read to learn how to write narrative nonfiction.”

Though his work has kept him on the East Coast, Boyer retains a familiarity with developments in Mississippi. Ten years ago he wrote a long piece for The New Yorker about the criminal investigation that engulfed Oxford attorney Dick Scruggs and other lawyers and judges. Earlier this year Boyer was the author of an article concerning the spirited race for the U.S. Senate seat held by Thad Cochran before his retirement.

Boyer is expected to talk about the contest – featuring Cochran’s appointed Republican successor, Cindy Hyde-Smith; the insurgent Chris McDaniel, who has the backing of the Tea Party wing of the GOP; and Mike Espy, a former Democratic congressman from Mississippi who is making his state party’s strongest bid in years for a Senate seat.

Boyer will also discuss the political fall-out from the recent battle involving Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the electoral pull of President Trump and the chances for national Democrats to win control of at least one of the houses of Congress in the Nov. 6 election.

He will be joined in the conversation by Overby Fellow Curtis Wilkie, who covered national politics for a more than a quarter-century for The Boston Globe.