Joe Killian is the reporter with NC Policy Watch who broke the story (byline shared with Kyle Ingram) of Nikole Hannah-Jones’ UNC-Chapel Hill tenure slight. He was also the first to report on Hannah-Jones’ declining UNC-Chapel Hill’s belated tenure offer and her decision to join the faculty at Howard University.

At the center of Hannah-Jones’ tenure denial is UNC-Chapel Hill megadonor, Walter Hussman, who Killian also interviewed in this June 03, 2021, NC Policy Watch piece in which Hussman denies “pressuring anybody.” (UNC’s school of journalism is now the UNC Hussman School of Journalism.)

In a thread on Twitter on July 06, 2021, Killian insightfully reflects on the two individuals central to this tenure story, Hannah-Jones and Hussman– and who among the three of them built journalism careers from the bottom up.

He also talks boxing (“Stay with me here….”)

It’s a great read. (Note: I…