H. Brandt Ayers is publisher of the Anniston Star and chairman of Consolidated Publishing Company.
His journalism career extends far beyond his position as chairman and publisher of the Star, “one of the best small newspapers in the United States,” according to Time magazine. Among his first journalism assignments was that of a capitol and legislative reporter for the Raleigh Times in North Carolina.
He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a trustee of the American Committee of the International Press Institute, Vienna, and is on the advisory board of the Ditchley Foundation, London. He is a trustee of the Southern Center for International Studies, and was appointed by President Carter to the Board of Foreign Scholarships (the International Fulbright Board).
In July 2000, he was appointed by Governor Don Siegelman to the Alabama Research Alliance. In 2002, he founded the World Affairs Journalism Fellowship Program, which provides travel grants for reporting abroad by regional newspaper editors. In 2003 he was given an award for editorial leadership by the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
He received a BA from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University (1967–68), and in 1990 he was a Gannet Fellow at Columbia University. He was awarded the Doctorate of Humane Letters by the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
