Thursday, October 2nd
7:30 - 9 pm: Panel discussion
9 – 10:30 pm: Debate watching party
At the Brecht Forum 451 West Street (West Side Highway / between Bank & Bethune Streets) Sliding scale: $6/$10/$15 • Free for Brecht Forum Subscribers
Join FAIR, the Manhattan Neighborhood Network and the Brecht Forum for a panel discussion, Q&A and debate-watching party on the night of the debate between vice presidential nominees Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.
The evening will kick off with a panel discussion on race, gender and the media in the 2008 election. In an election year that has seen the first black candidate nominated for president by a major party and the first Republican woman nominated for vice president--while two women of color have teamed up on the Green Party ticket--issues of race and gender have been at the forefront during this campaign season, not least in media coverage. But how well have the media served the public in this historic election? What issues are being ignored, even as the press heralds the race as evidence of shattered glass ceilings and the "end of black politics"? Journalists Laura Flanders, Glen Ford and Gary Younge take a closer look.
Then stick around with FAIR at the Brecht Forum to watch the vice presidential debate.
Laura Flanders is the host of GRITtv.org and RadioNation, and a former producer and host of FAIR's radio show CounterSpin. She is the author of Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics From the Politicians (Penguin Books, 2007),Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species (Verso, 2004) and Real Majority, Media Minority: The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting (Common Courage Press, 1997) She has written on Hillary Clinton in The Contenders (Seven Stories Press, 2007) and edited The W Effect: Sexual Politics in the Age of Bush, in 2004 for the Feminist Press. Her writing appears in The Nation, Alternet, Ms. Magazine and elsewhere, and her op-ed pieces have appeared in papers including The San Francisco Chronicle.
Glen Ford is the executive editor of the Black Agenda Report. He co-launched, produced and hosted America's Black Forum, the first nationally syndicated black news interview program on commercial television. He also launched Rap It Up, the first nationally syndicated Hip Hop music show, broadcast on 65 radio stations. He was national political columnist for Encore American & Worldwide News magazine; founded The Black Commentator and Africana Policies magazines; authored The Big Lie: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of the Grenada Invasion (IOJ, 1985); and served as reporter and editor for three newspapers. Ford was a founding member of the Washington chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), executive board member of the National Alliance of Third World Journalists (NATWJ), media specialist for the National Minority Purchasing Council and has spoken at scores of colleges and universities.
Gary Younge is a columnist and feature writer for the UK's Guardian and a columnist for the Nation. He has written extensively from the United States, Southern Africa and throughout Europe, as well as the U.K. He is the author ofNo Place Like Home: A Black Briton's Journey Through the Deep South (Picador, 1999). He was awarded newspaper journalist of the year for the Ethnic Minority Media Awards for three straight years, 2002 to 2004, and in 2000 was nominated for foreign journalist of the year for his reporting from Zimbabwe
