michael shanahan

Assistant Professor of Journalism

Phone: (202) 994-0649
Fax: (202) 994-5806
E-mail: Mikeshan@gwu.edu
Office: MPA 411

Courses Taught
SMPA 134, Washington Reporting

SMPA 100

Background
In the fall of 2005, Michael Shanahan joined the SMPA as an assistant visiting professor of journalism. He was a political reporter in Washington for 25 years and covered a wide variety of Washington beats, including the White House, several presidential campaigns, Congress, the Pentagon and the Watergate criminal trials. As a reporter, he traveled through most of the 50 states and overseas for presidential-level economic and diplomatic summits.

Shanahan was the White House correspondent and political reporter for Newhouse Newspapers Washington bureau from 1990 to 1996. While there he covered the Bush White House and Clinton's 1992 campaign. He also wrote extensively about the politics of health care reform under the Clinton administration. As national political correspondent and congressional reporter for McClatchy Newspapers Washington Bureau for five years, Shanahan covered the 1988 presidential campaign, Congress, the Iran-contra scandal, and the Persian Gulf war debates. From 1986 to 2005, Shanahan was a media representative in the Communications Department of the American Petroleum Institute, a research and advocacy organization for the U.S. petroleum industry.

Shanahan began his reporting career in 1965 with the Pittsburgh bureau of the Associated Press (AP) but later that year he was called to serve in the U.S. Army. His tour of duty included one year in Vietnam as an intelligence officer where he was awarded the Bronze Star and the combat infantryman's badge for service in Cu Chi, South Vietnam. He also spent one year as an instructor at the Army Intelligence School at Fort Holabird, Md.; and six months attending the Infantry Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Ga.

He returned to the Pittsburgh AP office in 1969, where he was put to work covering labor negotiations in the steel industry, the assassination of United Mine Workers Union leader Jock Jablonski, and the Vietnam-era shooting of students at Kent State University in Ohio. In 1970, Shanahan moved to the AP's Washington bureau where his assignments included covering Congress for a decade, the presidential campaigns of Gary Hart, Walter Mondale, and John Anderson, the Pentagon, the Justice Department, and a variety of economic topics. He also served as leader of the Wire Service Guild, the union representing AP writers and editors in Washington, D.C.

Education
B.A., Journalism, Pennsylvania State University, 1965