Thought Leader: Connie Schultz

Connie Schultz is a nationally syndicated columnist for The Plain Dealer and Creators Syndicate, and a regular essayist for Parade Magazine. She won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for columns that judges praised for providing "a voice for the underdog and the underprivileged."

Also in 2005, Schultz won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award for Commentary and the National Headliner Award for Commentary. She was a 2003 Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing for her series, The Burden of Innocence, which chronicled the ordeal of Michael Green, who was imprisoned for 13 years for a rape he did not commit. The week after her series ran, the real rapist turned himself in after reading her stories. The series won the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Social Justice Reporting, the National Headliner Award's Best of Show and journalism awards from Harvard and Columbia universities.

In 2004, Schultz won the Batten Medal, which honors "a body of journalistic work that reflects compassion, courage, humanity and a deep concern for the underdog."

Schultz is the author of two books published by Random House: Life Happens - And Other Unavoidable Truths, a collection of essays, and ...and His Lovely Wife, a memoir about her husband Sherrod Brown's successful 2006 race for the U.S. Senate. Her first novel will be released in the fall of 2012.

Schultz and her husband have four grown children and one grandson.

Connie has written the essay, The Value of Journalism as part of the IVOH Voices & Values of Journalism Project - listen to and read the entire collection of essays here.

Connie's recent work and related links:

• 180-day Archive of Recent Columns (2009)

• The C-SPAN interview that riled up Rush Limbaugh (2009)

• Six election panels on Charlie Rose (2008)
  

• ...and His Lovely Wife: A Campaign Memoir from the Women Beside the Man (2007)
  

• Interview with NPR's Terry Gross on Fresh Air (2007)
  

• Interview with Charlie Rose (2007)
  

• Interview on C-SPAN's After Words (2007)
  

• Interview with NPR's Robert Seigel on All Things Considered (2007)

• Life Happens--and Other Avoidable Truths (2006)

• Ten Columns That Won the 2005 Pulitzer (2004)

• "Burden of Innocence" (2002)