Eric Deggans has been selected to serve as the next John S. and James L. Knight Chair in Journalism and Media Ethics at Washington and Lee University. Deggans was inducted to the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame in April 2024. He was a 2021 recipient of the IU Distinguished Alumni Service Award — the highest award bestowed on IU alumni by the university.

Deggans is NPR’s first full-time TV critic. He served as a TV and media critic at the Tampa Bay Times for almost 20 years. He has worked at the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey and both the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh Press newspapers in Pennsylvania. Deggans has been recognized by the Society for Features Journalism, American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists, The Florida Press Club and the Florida Society of News Editors. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Salon magazine, CNN.com, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Seattle Times, Rolling Stone and other publications across the country. (March 2025)