Charles L. Overby is chairman and chief executive officer of the Freedom Forum, an independent, nonpartisan foundation dedicated to First Amendment and media issues, and the Diversity Institute, which educates and trains people for careers in journalism.

Overby also is chief executive officer of the Newseum, the interactive museum of news, which opened in Washington, D.C., in April 2008. The Freedom Forum funds the operations of both the Newseum and the Diversity Institute.

He was named president and chief executive officer of the Gannett Foundation in 1989. The foundation was renamed the Freedom Forum in 1991.

He became chairman as well as CEO in 1997. He has traveled to six continents to promote free press values.

Overby is a former editor of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss. Under his leadership, the newspaper won the Pulitzer Prize Public Service Award for news and editorials on education reform in Mississippi in 1983. He worked for 16 years as reporter, editor and corporate executive for the Gannett Co., the nation’s largest newspaper company. He was vice president for news and communications for Gannett and served on the management committees of Gannett and USA TODAY.

As a reporter, he covered the White House, presidential campaigns, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Overby serves on the boards of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. He is a member of the foundation board of the University of Mississippi, his alma mater, and a former member of the Board of Regents at Baylor University.

Overby has served two stints in government: He was press assistant to Sen. John Stennis, D-Miss., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and special assistant for administration to Gov. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

He and his wife, Andrea, have three children: Anna, Melissa and Chad, and two grandchildren.