New York Times' Helene Cooper - "Covering the President" - March 20, 2012

Helene Cooper, White House correspondent for The New York Times, gave the Nelson Benton Lecture at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media on March 20. Her talk was titled "Covering the President."

Before covering the White House, Cooper was the diplomatic correspondent for the Times for three years, after a stint on the Times' editorial page as assistant editor.

Before joining the Times in 2004, Cooper worked for 12 years at The Wall Street Journal, covering international trade, foreign policy and economics out of the newspaper's Atlanta, Washington and London bureaus.

She is a graduate of Carolina's J-school and delivered its spring commencement address in 2010.

Cooper is a native of Monrovia, Liberia, and is the author of The New York Times bestseller, "The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood."

The Nelson Benton Lecture Series, which brings distinguished journalists to the school, was established by family and friends of the longtime CBS News anchor and reporter who died in 1988.