Athelia Knight was a Scripps Howard Visiting Professional in the spring 2001 semester, teaching a specialized reporting class on covering the justice system.

She has been a Washington Post reporter for more than 25 years. She has worked on the metro desk, the investigative unit and the sports staff. Her reporting career has spanned a variety of issues and subjects.

As an investigative reporter, she has spent a year in a D.C. high school to chronicle life and education in an urban environment; watched and reported drug smuggling in a prison; rode with police officers on patrol in one of Washington’s toughest crime districts to report a series called “Street Cops;” walked with residents in a neighborhood patrol for four months to report their efforts to take back their streets from drug dealers; and followed cops, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and criminals to report an extensive look at how the District of Columbia’s criminal justice system was coping with the increase in murders in the city.

She also has uncovered evidence in two separate murder cases—a Florida death row case and a life imprisonment case in Missouri—that helped lead to the release of the defendants from prison.

As a metro reporter, she has written about politicians, the court system, schools and crime. As a sports writer for six years, she covered sports events, teams and leagues, including the 1996 Olympics, the NBA, the WNBA, and the NHL.

Her reporting has received several journalism awards. Her series on a D.C. high school was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1988. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1985-86. In 1996-97, she studied at the Alliance Francaise in Paris, while on a 10-month leave to immerse herself in the French language and culture.

In October 2000, she was named assistant director of the Washington Post’s Young Journalists Development Project, a program designed to help prepare high school and college students for careers in journalism.