Eric Deggans is the Knight Chair in Journalism and Media Ethics at Washington and  Lee University and a critic-at-large at NPR, where he specializes in commentary on issues of race, media, politics, journalism, communication, systemic oppression, social and health inequities and more. He appears on all NPR’s news shows, including on Morning Edition, Here & Now and All Things Considered. He writes for NPR.org and appears on podcasts such as Consider This, Life Kit and Pop Culture Happy Hour. 

Earlier, he spent 12 years as the first full-time TV critic hired by NPR, contributing as a media analyst and guest host during his tenure on staff. Deggans also serves as a guest instructor and member of the National Advisory Board for the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Florida, and spent five years as an adjunct instructor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy. 

Deggans is author of Race-Baiter: How the Media Wields Dangerous Words to Divide a Nation (2012, Palgrave Macmillan). In 2019, he served as the first African American chairman of the board of educators, journalists and media experts who select the George Foster Peabody Awards for excellence in electronic media. 

He is a graduate of Indiana University, where he was given the Distinguished Alumni Award. He was inducted into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame in 2024. 

Photo by Carrie Pratt/Simply Blue Studios