CHESTERTOWN — Jonathan Karl, chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and co-anchor of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” will deliver the keynote address at Washington College’s commencement on Sunday, May 18.
Weather permitting, the ceremony will be held on the campus’ front lawn, beginning at 11 a.m.
Commencement is open to the public.
“It’s a high honor to deliver the commencement address at Washington College,” Karl said in a written statement. “I look forward to meeting the graduates and their families and spending time at an institution that holds the core values as its founding patron, George Washington.”
He added that the commencement ceremony holds special meaning to him because his older brother is a proud graduate of Washington College.
“I have fond memories of visiting the campus many years ago,” Karl said.
A former president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, Karl served as ABC’s chief White House correspondent from 2012 to 2021.
He has broad experience covering U.S. politics, foreign policy and the military, and has reported from more than 30 countries.
Karl’s reporting has been recognized with some of the most prestigious honors in journalism, including the Walter Cronkite Award for National Individual Achievement and the National Press Foundation’s Everett McKinley Dirksen Award, the highest honor for congressional reporting.
He also is one of the few journalists to win the Radio and TV Correspondents’ Association’s Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for excellence in Washington-based reporting twice, in 2010 and 2015.
He won an Emmy® Award for coverage of the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Karl has covered every major beat in Washington, including the White House, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon and the State Department, traveling globally with Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.
He has reported from the White House under four presidents and more than a dozen press secretaries.
He has covered seven presidential elections, securing early interviews with such political figures as Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 cycle.
Karl is the author of three New York Times bestsellers: “Tired of Winning: Donald Trump and the End of the Grand Old Party,” “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show” and “Front Row at the Trump Show.”
His forthcoming book, “Retribution: Donald Trump and the Campaign That Changed America,” will be published in October.
Beyond politics, Karl has interviewed singer Elton John, actor George Clooney, baseball legend Ernie Banks, the Dalai Lama and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, as well as other leading figures in sports and popular culture.
