Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw will lead this year's Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism, the university announced yesterday.
The event will focus on the news media's coverage of political elections and will be titled, "Noise vs. News: the State of Political Coverage." It will take place on April 14.
Matt Bai (LA '90), a political reporter for the New York Times Magazine and the author of "The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics," will also sit on the panel. An additional one or two panelists have yet to be recruited.
Brokaw anchored the NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. The program became the most-watched television news show in the United States during the latter portion of Brokaw's tenure.
"I think that he's a very exiting speaker for everybody," said Julie Dobrow, the director of Tufts' Communications and Media Studies Program. "He obviously brings a wealth of experience."
Neal Shapiro (LA '80) was the president of NBC News while Brokaw was an anchor there. Shapiro chairs the Communications and Media Studies Alumni Board, so he played a pivotal role in enlisting Brokaw to come for this year's forum, Dobrow said.
"Neal has a close personal relationship with Tom Brokaw, so it was pretty easy for him to pick up the phone and ... ask for us," she said.
The panel this year will vary from last year's, in which former CBS News anchor Dan Rather moderated a panel discussion among four experts who weighed in on the press' coverage of war and conflict. This year, Brokaw, Bai and the other panelists will engage in an intimate conversation in front of the audience.
"Brokaw will make some introductory remarks, but the plan is to run it in a bit more of a conversational format," Dobrow said.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of groundbreaking journalist Edward Murrow, for whom Tufts' annual forum series is named. In commemoration of this landmark year, Tufts will hold a two-day event, which will be co-sponsored by the Communications and Media Studies Program, the Fletcher School and Tisch Library, and will take place on April 14 and 15.
The Fletcher School will hold a conference focusing on public diplomacy, another aspect of Murrow's legacy. After leaving CBS news, where he garnered his reputation as the nation's top television newsman, Murrow became the head of the United States Information Agency in 1961.
Tisch Library will celebrate the centennial by presenting a display of Murrow-related papers and artifacts in a digital archive. Some physical artifacts will be on display in Cabot Auditorium, as well.
"We're very excited to have people of the caliber of Tom Brokaw and Matt Bai coming to Tufts," Dobrow said. "It's a testament to the really exciting work going on at Tufts. It's a testament to the fact that we have such incredible alumni connections and it's a testament to the stature of Edward R. Murrow - both in his day and the fact that even today he sets the standard for journalism."
