Alicia Shepard is Ombudsman for National Public Radio. Her duties include investigating and responding to queries from the public regarding editorial standards in NPR’s news programming. She also writes an Internet column on www.NPR.org/ombudsman and presents her views on journalistic issues on-air on National Public Radio.

She is the author of Woodward and Bernstein: Life in the Shadow of Watergate (2006), which chronicles the captivating story of the famed journalists during and after the seismic events surrounding Watergate in the early 1970s. She also co-authored Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11 (2002), about how journalists covered the tragedy and the public roles they played as keepers of calm on that seminal day.

She also teaches Media Ethics in the graduate program at Georgetown University.

Before her appointment as Ombudsman in October 2007, Shepard taught journalism at American University and University of Texas, as well as writing for the New York Times, Washingtonian magazine, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Newark Star Ledger and Washington Post. From 1993 to 2002, she was a principal contributor to the American Journalism Review on such topics as how journalism works, the newspaper industry, ethics and new media. Her work was recognized three times with the National Press Club’s top media criticism prize.

From 1987 to 1993, she and her family sailed through the South Pacific and then lived in Kagoshima, Japan, where she wrote and learned Japanese. From 1982 to 1987, she was a staff reporter with the San Jose (CA) Mercury News. She began her career as a reporter in Washington, DC for Scripps League Newspapers in 1978.

Shepard holds a B.A. in English with honors from George Washington University and a M.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland.