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Syracuse University disinvites Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist due to Ebola fears

Photojournalist Michel du Cille has been asked not to come to campus in wake of the Ebola crisis after arriving from Africa three weeks ago.

du Cille, a Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist for the Washington Post, returned from covering the Ebola crisis in Liberia 21 days ago and is symptom free. du Cille was scheduled to teach at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication’s Fall Workshop, which started Thursday and runs through Sunday.

“I just got off the phone with the Dean (Lorraine Branham), and I am pissed off,” du Cille told News Photographer magazine Thursday afternoon. “I am disappointed in the level of journalism at Syracuse, and I am angry that they missed a great teaching opportunity. Instead they have decided to jump in with the mass hysteria.”

du Cille’s wife, Nikki Kahn, was also disinvited to the workshop, according to the magazine. Kahn won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news in 2011 for the Washington Post’s coverage of Haiti. du Cille has won Pulitzer Prizes in 1985, 1988 and 2008, respectively.

Since his return from Liberia, du Cille has followed the Center for Disease Control’s guidelines and has monitored himself for symptoms, according to News Photographer magazine. The accepted incubation period for Ebola is 21 days.



More than 4,400 people have died from Ebola since March, according to the World Health Organization. There have been eight cases of the disease in the United States. Four patients remain in treatment and one person has died.

“They missed a great teaching opportunity here for the students, to show them how to report the facts and practice good journalism,” du Cille told the magazine. “Instead they went the alarmist route.”





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