(New York, NY - October 20, 2004) New School University’s Public Policy Program will present a panel discussion on “Iraq and the Media” on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 from 6:00 - 7:30 p.m. at the University’s Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd Floor, NYC. Panelists will include William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, Edward Rothstein, cultural critic of The New York Times, and Jonathan Schell of The Nation Institute. New School University President Bob Kerrey will moderate the discussion. Admission is free. To RSVP, please e-mail [email protected]. For further information, call (212) 229-5353. The Public Policy Program is underwritten by Kenneth J. Bialkin and the Bialkin Family Foundation.
If the media shape our national identity through a “democracy of images” then the evolving nature of the media is of vital concern. We are witnessing a transformation in how we get political information, but where some see and fear centralized control of information in the new media, others look forward to the decentralization and democratization of information. What is the source of this paradox?
Applying our question to the war in Iraq, we ask: How is public knowledge produced? What gets covered, and what gets ignored by what media? Does the “embedding” of American journalists in military units undermine their independent judgement? Has coverage of the war in other countries brought U.S. media disrepute by comparison? How has the Iraq war sharpened the debate over print vs. broadcast? The panel will explore these questions.
This event is sponsored by the Wolfson Center for National Affairs at The New School and the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science.
Bios:
William Kristol is editor of the Washington-based political magazine The Weekly Standard. Recognized as one of the nation’s leading political analysts and commentators, Mr. Kristol regularly appears on Fox News Sunday and on the Fox News Channel. Before starting The Weekly Standard in 1995, Mr. Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, and served in the previous Bush administration and the Reagan administration. Before coming to Washington in 1985, Mr. Kristol taught politics at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Mr. Kristol recently co-authored The New York Times bestseller The War Over Iraq: America’s Mission and Saddam’s Tyranny.
Edward Rothstein is Cultural Critic at Large for The New York Times, writing in the Arts & Ideas section on culture, literature, music, intellectual life and technology. He has been chief music critic of The New York Times, music critic for The New Republic and has written on a wide variety of subjects for Commentary, The New York Review of Books and others. He is the author of Emblems of Mind: The Inner Life of Music and Mathematics, and a new book, Visions of Utopia, co-authored with Herbert Muschamp and Martin Marty.
Jonathan Schell is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute. He is the author of several books, including a new book, The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People. He has been a contributor to The Nation, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and Foreign Affairs, and has taught at Wesleyan, Princeton, Emory, and the Graduate Faculty, among other Universities.
About New School University
New School University, with 7,000 matriculated students and 25,000 continuing education students, is a New York City university committed to critical scholarship, artistic integrity, and ethical responsibility in the social sciences, humanities, the arts and design. It is comprised of a liberal arts foundation of three schools: The New School, Eugene Lang College and the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science, and five professional schools: Parsons School of Design, Mannes College of Music, Actors Studio Drama School, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, and the Jazz & Contemporary Music Program. New School Online University offers one of the largest selections of online courses in the nation. For further information about New School University, call 212-229-5600 or visit the Web site at www.newschool.edu.