Michael Shanahan
Assistant Professor of Journalism

Phone – (202) 994-0649
Fax – (202) 994-5806
E-mail – mikeshan@gwu.edu
Office – MPA 424
Office Hours – Mon. and Wed. 10:00 am – 11:30 am

Education

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

Courses Taught

SMPA 3480, Convergence and Future of Journalism
SMPA 3232, Online Journalism Workshop
SMPA 4199, Senior Seminar (Journalism Ethics)
SMPA 3240, Washington Reporting
SMPA 2111, Advanced News Reporting

Background

Michael Shanahan has been an assistant professor of journalism in SMPA since 2005. From 1999 to 2005, he taught various journalism courses as a part-timed adjunct professor.

Shanahan is currently the assistant director for student affairs of SMPA with responsibility for admissions and student advising.

Before beginning his teaching career, Shanahan was a political reporter in Washington for a quarter century, covering a wide variety of beats including the White House, several presidential campaigns, Congress, the Pentagon and the Watergate criminal trials.

His coverage took him all but a handful of the 50 states and overseas for presidential travel to more than a dozen foreign countries.

From 1990 to 1996, Shanahan was the White House correspondent and political reporter for the Newhouse Newspapers Washington bureau, covering the Bush White House and former President Clinton’s 1992 election campaign. He also wrote extensively about the politics of health care reform during the Clinton Administration As a national political and congressional correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers for five years, Shanahan covered the 1988 presidential campaign, Congress, the Iran-Contra scandal under Ronald Reagan and congressional debates about the first Iraq War.

From 1996 to 2005, Shanahan was a media representative in the Communications Department of the American Petroleum Institute.

Shanahan began his reporting career with the Associated Press in 1965 immediately after graduating from Penn State. After six months, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and earned a commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. His tour as an intelligence officer included a year in Vietnam where he was awarded the Bronze Star and a Combat Infantryman's Badge for service in An Loc and Cu Chi, Vietnam.

His final military assignment was at Fort Holabird, Md, where he was an instructor in the U.S. Army Intelligence School.

Shanahan returned to journalism in 1969, reporting from the Associated Press Pittsburgh bureau, including coverage of the assassination of United Mine Workers Union Leader Jock Jablonski and the Vietnam-era shooting of four student demonstrators at Kent State University on May 4, 1970. Shortly thereafter, Shanahan moved to the AP’s Washington Bureau where his assignments included coverage of Congress, and presidential candidates Gary Hart, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, George HW Bush and Bill Clinton. He also covered the Pentagon, the Justice Department and a variety of economic and diplomatic stories.

Shanahan is married to Victoria Elliott and they have two children, Martha, 20, a student at Tufts University, and Claire, 18, a student at New York University.