Osler McCarthy, Lecturer

Osler McCarthy has worked in journalism for more than 20 years, first as a reporter in Sherman, Texas, then as city editor at the Temple Daily Telegram; assistant city editor and business editor at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash.; assistant city editor and special projects editor at The Kansas City Star; assistant managing editor at The San Bernardino County Sun; and state editor and legal affairs reporter at the Austin American-Statesman. He is now staff attorney for public information at the Supreme Court of Texas.

McCarthy graduated with a B.A. in political science from Austin College, did graduate work in print and broadcast news at the Missouri School of Journalism and earned a J.D. cum laude from Gonzaga University Law School in 1990 (a school later better known, even in Spokane, for its basketball team than for its law graduates, of which in Spokane there are many). He clerked for the late Chief Justice Fred Dore of the Washington State Supreme Court and practiced mostly appellate criminal defense in Spokane for more than three years, winning as a percentage in that time more than most appellate defenders in Eastern Washington. He returned to journalism because, while law was fun and his reputation for good work grew, the endeavor didn’t put much food on the table.

In Sherman, McCarthy won writing awards from the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors and in Kansas City investigations he supervised won state, regional and national recognition, including a National Headliners Award. When he oversaw the metropolitan desk in San Bernardino, the Sun was named one of the 10 best newspapers in the Gannett group for the first time, then earned the same recognition the next year.

He has been an adjunct professor at Whitworth College in Spokane, teaching reporting; at then-Southwest Texas State University, teaching media law and news writing; and at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches news writing and has taught public affairs reporting and media law. He also is on the faculty of the National Judicial College at the University of Nevada at Reno.

McCarthy has published articles on libel in Journalism Quarterly and the Gonzaga Law Review and wrote the chapter on defamation for a volume on torts in Washington Practice, the standard reference for Washington state attorneys.

He is married to Diana Dawson, a lecturer at UT. They have two occasionally well-behaved children.

Recent courses: J315, News Media Writing & Editing.