The last time I saw Ted Kennedy he was, in Tom Wolfe's phrase, "A man in full." It was Labor Day, 2007, on Cape Cod, and he was singing and laughing hugely through one of those parody songs that folks compose for friends' birthdays. He was great. He lit up the place. He was free at last, I thought. He had the right job and the right wife. He was free of the presidential ambitions forced on him by others, especially by his dead brothers. He was free of being a Kennedy. He was what he was meant to be,……
Month: August 2009
Trial Lawyers at Work
The Wall Street Journal cited "The People v. Clarence Darrow" by CCLP Director Geoffrey Cowan as the No. 1 book about trial lawyers. While defending labor activists accused of a 1910 bombing, Darrow was implicated in jury tampering; the noted lawyer defended himself and was acquitted. The article noted that Cowan weighs the evidence in his book, and concludes that Darrow was probably guilty…….
Rachlis joins CCLP as senior fellow
Award-winning editor Kit Rachlis has been appointed a 2009-2010 Senior Fellow of the USC Annenberg School for Communication's Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP). As a Senior Fellow, he will help lead a series of discussions and projects in the area of "Arts, Politics & Society."……
Communication Leadership Open Forum: Tom Rosenstiel
Join Geoffrey Cowan, USC University Professor and director of the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy for an open forum with Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Topics include new models for news, economic literacy and entrepreneurship skills needed in the journalism profession, and the role of media in a democracy with a focus on coverage of the debate over health care reform. This forum is part of a series planned in conjunction with Dean Wilson's Economic Literacy and Entrepreneurship (ELE) initiative. Lunch will be served. RSVP requested. To RSVP, write commlead@usc.edu…….
African American media struggling to survive
Public Radio International's "Here and Now" interviewed Faculty Fellow Christopher Holmes Smith about African-American media outlets struggling to survive. The magazines are losing relevance because of class and generational differences within the black community, Smith said…….
Will YouTube be the Craigslist of TV News?
BOSTON — Watch that space: YouTube video news is here, tailored just for you, featuring news of your microlocal neighborhood, just for you. If you haven't seen it, YouTube News Near You is an automated microlocal news service, with software detecting a your location and matching it with video news stories from that neighborhood. Turn on, tune in, and drop out of the six o'clock local TV news. So far the story selection is pretty limited. Think of YouTube's new local news service as 2009's version of the "Camel News Caravan," NBC's 15-minute nightly newscast of the early 1950's, hop……
Death an emotional rallying cry in Iran
The Los Angeles Daily News quoted Senior Fellow David Westphal about the widely viewed footage of Iranian protester Neda Agha-Soltan dying from a gunshot wound. "The 'Neda' video wasn't the only amateur video that millions of people have been seeing over the last week, but it was clearly the most emotionally powerful, wrenchingly powerful, example," Westphal said…….