New York Times economics columnist David Leonhardt delivered this year's Baldwin Business and Financial Journalism lecture, "The Great Stagnation: How It Created President Trump," Tuesday at 7 p.m.
"This year, because of President Trump and that being the big thing that everyone's talking about, it made a lot of sense to focus on that," said Andrea Tanner, the director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communications.
Leonhardt focused his lecture on the American idea of progress and the portion of Americans, roughly a third of the population, whose families have not experienced it in recent generations. When analyzing this group of people it becomes clear that the rate of progress in living standards in America have slowed dramatically. While the economy has become larger, families' wealth has become smaller due to increased economic inequality. The lecture addressed how the frustrations of Americans with these factors partially led to Trump's surprising victory in the presidential election and how a combination of solutions could possibly change America's situation.
Kelley Anne Kennedy, a fourth-year economics student, attended the lecture after seeing it announced in the Honors College weekly newsletter.
"I'm worried about the future and interested in what's going to happen in this administration, and so I wanted to hear from someone who is more knowledgeable than me," Kennedy said.
"I thought it was a very nice sympathetic portrait of people who have supported Trump and made for an audience that they were expecting to not have a lot of Trump supporters. I think that it was a good gesture at unity," Kennedy said.
Leonhardt enjoys sharing his knowledge of business journalism with students and was willing to share advice on entering the field of journalism. He stressed the increased importance on expertise in a world where knowledge is easily accessible to the public through the internet.
"Whatever it is you basically want to have covered it enough and researched it enough and studied it enough that you know stuff that your readers don’t," Leonhardt said.
He said that this focus combined with practical skills is the key to remaining marketable regardless of how business models may change. He said the most important advice was given to him by Mark Morris, the former managing editor at Business Week Magazine.
"There's nothing more important than doing work that is public; it's not just for your teachers, it's not just for your friends, it's public in some way," he said.
The annual lecture series is a part of the Baldwin Business and Financial Journalism Endowment, which is given by Kenneth W. Baldwin Jr. a 1949 graduate of the USC School of Journalism and Mass Communications in 1949 who went on to have a successful career at Landmark Communications in Virginia. The endowment is meant to support and further the instruction of business journalism at USC. It funds the lecture series, as well as a new scholarship fund for students in business and financial journalism and a summer workshop for high school students.
Tanner explained an expanded use of the endowment.
"We hope to have courses and some type of program in the school surrounding business journalism, and the business of journalism and business communication," she said.