By Lindsey Gipson
Renee Shaw, Kentucky Educational Television (KET) Director of Public Affairs and Moderator
was the guest speaker for the McGaughey Lecture series on Press Freedom and Responsibility
held September 19, 2024, on the Murray State campus.
Shaw, who has more than 30 years of journalistic experience, spoke about journalistic integrity,
representation in media, connecting with audiences and identifying bias in reporting.
“Renee Shaw quite candidly laid out the challenges to the modern multi-media journalist, and
then addressed both the strategies for meeting those challenges and the price of failure,”
Robert Valentine, chair of the McGaughey lecture steering committee said. “Getting it right is
more important than getting it first; being accurate is more important than being exciting.”
The annual McGaughey lecture honors Dr. Robert H. (Doc) McGaughey, former chair of the
Department of Journalism and Mass Communications. In 2021, friends and colleagues decided
that an effort to articulate and encourage his philosophy of journalism and free speech would
be a fitting tribute and an appropriate goal.
Among the audience this year were professors, Murray community members, alumni and current Murray State journalism students.
“I was inspired. Shaw is an example of why journalism is so important today,” Sienaca Valdez, first-year journalism student, said. “The importance of journalistic integrity cannot be emphasized enough, especially right now.”
Previously, Marc Murphy, a Louisville attorney and political cartoonist for the Louisville Courier-Journal, was the past year’s keynote speaker.
