New York native Nancy Gibbs joined TIME Magazine as a fact checker in 1985, going on to become one of the magazine's most highly esteemed writers and editors, writing cover stories on presidential elections, politics, impeachment, terrorism and war. In 2013, Gibbs was named the top ranking editor at TIME, calling herself “the first managing editor to wear pumps — so far as we know.”
Her career successes include two best-selling presidential histories, a National Magazine Award for her September 11, 2011 coverage and overseeing the transition of TIME Magazine into a fully digital newsroom. It is the latter achievement which makes Gibbs an expert witness on the digital age of information consumption and the subject of her public lecture Our Tools, Our Brains, Our Souls: The Transformations of Technology.
In this lecture, Gibbs aims to both marvel at the sheer tenacity and spread of information in our digital age, question the Internet's role in 'democratising the good and disrupting the bad' and ponder how we as a community monitor the impact of technology that is now so intrinsic to our way of living.
Nancy Gibbs tours New Zealand as the 2015 John F. Kennedy. Memorial Fellow. The evening will be MC'd by award winning New Zealand journalist Matt Nirpert.