Joshua Benton (born 1975) is an American journalist and writer. He is director of theNieman Journalism Lab atHarvard University, which he founded in 2008.[1][2]
Before moving to Harvard, Benton was an investigative reporter and columnist forThe Dallas Morning News and a staff writer forThe Toledo Blade. He won numerous national awards[3] for his reporting, most notably on education. He wrote a series of stories on cheating on Texas' state test, theTexas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, which led to state reforms and the permanent closure of theWilmer-Hutchins Independent School District.[4]
He was aNieman Fellow at Harvard, aPew Fellow in International Journalism atJohns Hopkins University, and aJefferson Fellow at theEast-West Center at theUniversity of Hawaii. AtYale University, he was editor-in-chief ofThe Yale Herald.[citation needed]
