July 25 and August 28, 2004 — Since 1992, the Shorenstein Center has sponsored a brunch and panel discussion prior to the start of the national political conventions. In 2004, the Center was delighted to host one of these events “at home” in the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard on the Sunday before the Democratic convention.
Alex Jones moderated a panel of television news anchors including Tom Brokaw (NBC News), Peter Jennings (ABC News), Jim Lehrer (PBS), Dan Rather (CBS News) and Judy Woodruff (CNN). The role of the evening news in an election year and the increasing media consolidation were some of the topics discussed by the panelists. View the transcript (PDF).
Six weeks later, the Shorenstein Center went to the Harvard Club in New York for a panel at the Republican convention featuring journalists from the print media, including Jill Abramson (the New York Times), David Gergen (U.S. News and World Report, Harvard University), Al Hunt (the Wall Street Journal), Joe Klein (Time magazine) and John Podhoretz (New York Post). View the transcript (PDF).
The Harvard Club event was moderated by Alex Jones, who lead a discussion on negative television advertising and the impact of cable television on print coverage.
The photo is by Stephanie Mitchell of the Harvard News Office and originally appeared in the Harvard Gazette.
