Bio
Joe Starita is a professor within the College of Journalism and Mass Communications, he has co-taught a depth reporting class that exhaustively examined the pros and cons of corn-based ethanol and a legislative attempt to significantly strengthen state immigration laws. His classes also have produced two depth reports focused on Native American women. During 1983-197 Starita spent 13 years at the Miami Herald and served as the paper’s New York bureau chief. He also spent 4 years on the Herald’s investigative team where one of the stories was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in local reporting. In 2009, St. Martin’s Press published Starita’s “I Am a Man: Chief Standing Bear’s Journey for Justice,” a book on the life and death of Standing Bear, the Ponca chief who, in 1879, unwittingly ended up in the crosshairs of a landmark legal case. That book was the One Book-One Lincoln selection for 2011 and the One Book One Nebraska pick for 2012. In July 2011, Starita received the Leo Reano Award, a national civil rights award, from the National Education Association for his work with the Native American community.