Election '08: Race, Gender and the Media

Journalists
Laura Flanders, Glen Ford and Gary Younge will discuss race, gender and
campaign coverage at a panel at NYC's Brecht Forum on October 2nd.

 Thursday, October 2nd,
7:30 - 9 pm
Brecht Forum,
451 West Street (West Side Highway / between Bank & Bethune Streets),
NYC

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 in a panel
sponsored by FAIR, the Manhattan Neighborhood Network and the Brecht
Forum.

The
panel will be followed by a debate watching party, in which the vice
presidential debate will be shown on a big screen immediately following
the panel. Both events are sponsored by the national media watch group FAIR, the Manhattan Neighborhood Network and the Brecht Forum.Admission to both events is $6/$10/$15 (sliding scale); free for Brecht Forum subscribers.

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 of No 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.