SoJ Web Report | Jan. 12, 2009
The School of Journalism Speaker Series features a television documentary maker and author, a longtime news correspondent and a bestselling author, all of whom will speak this spring in free lectures open to the public.James Burke
 |
| Courtesy photo |
| James Burke |
The Washington Post hailed James Burke as “one of the most intriguing minds in the Western world.” For more than 40 years Burke has produced, directed, written and hosted award-winning television series (including the landmark Connections) on BBC, PBS, Discovery and The Learning Channel. Burke is the best-selling author of Connections, The Day the Universe Changed and The Knowledge Web.
- Read more about Burke.
Steve Kroft
 |
| Courtesy photo |
| Steve Kroft |
Steve Kroft has been a CBS news correspondent for more than 27 years, and this season of 60 Minutes will be his 19th on the broadcast. Kroft is a recipient of three George Foster Peabody Awards and 11 Emmy awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Emmy for his body of work. Nov. 19, Kroft interviewed Barack Obama in the president elect’s first post-election interview.
Sylvia Nasar
 |
| Courtesy photo |
| Sylvia Nasar |
Economist, journalist and professor Sylvia Nasar is the author of A Beautiful Mind, the best-seller that inspired the Academy Award-winning film starring Russell Crowe. While working as an economics reporter for The New York Times, Nasar discovered the remarkable story of John Nash, the Princeton mathematical genius who suffered from schizophrenia for three decades before recovering and winning a Nobel Prize in economics.
The Speaker Series began in fall 2006 and has brought well-known journalists and authors to campus, including Anna Quindlen, Nina Totenberg, Lisa Ling, Frank DeFord, David Halberstam and Christopher Hitchen, among others.
Also this spring:
As an added bonus this semester, the school is collaborating with other departments to bring three additional speakers.David Rocks
7 p.m. Jan. 29 at the School of Journalism Auditorium (in collaboration with the Kelley School of Business)David Rocks has been senior editor for Global News at BusinessWeek magazine since 2006, overseeing the magazine’s correspondents and coordinating bureaus from Mexico City to Mumbai. Prior to this, Rocks was Asia editor for four years, leading coverage in Asia and writing stories about technology, politics and design trends. Before joining BusinessWeek, Rocks spent eight years in Prague as a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Howard French
7 p.m. March 5 at the School of Journalism Auditorium (in collaboration with the Indiana University African Studies Program and the East Asian Studies Center)Howard French worked for 22 years, mostly as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He reported from more than 100 countries on five continents. Now a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he was most recently bureau chief with the Times’ Shanghai bureau. Disappearing Shanghai, French’s photography of the last remnants of Shanghai’s historic neighborhoods, has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Europe and Asia, and reprinted in numerous magazines.
Jennifer 8. Lee
7 p.m. April 2 in the School of Journalism Auditorium (in collaboration with the Asian Culture Center)Jennifer 8. Lee is a metropolitan reporter at The New York Times, where she has worked for many years. She is the author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, which explores how Chinese food is all-American. At the Times, she has written about poverty, the environment, crime, politics and technology. National Public Radio has called her a “conceptual scoop artist.”
