David E. Sanger covers the White House for The New York Times and is one of the newspaper’s senior writers. In a 24-year career at the paper, he has reported from New York, Tokyo and Washington. Twice he has been a member of Times reporting teams that won the Pulitzer Prize.

In January 2009, Sanger published the book The Inheritence:  The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power.

Constance Laibe Hays was a longtime New York Times reporter and author of The Real Thing: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company. She shared a 2002 Pulitzer Prize given to New York Times staff for its coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. in 2005, Mrs Hays died of cancer and her family and friends have established this annual lecture in her honor to support the work of new and established writers.