More Information About Public Lecture Series: Gwen Ifill Interviews Judith Miller, Cokie Roberts and Helen Thomas

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http://dce.uj.edu/Content/ContentUnit.asp?CID=1137&u=6307&t=0

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The University of Judaism’s Department of Continuing Education presents this lecture as part of its 2007 Public Lecture Series. Prominent world leaders and media personalities gather at Gibson Amphitheatre to take you behind the scenes of history—sharing their perspectives on our world.

Gwen Ifill is a journalist for PBS. She earlier worked for the Boston Herald, the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and NBC. Ifill became moderator of the PBS program Washington Week in Review in October 1999 and is also senior correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Journalist Judith Miller announced her retirement from The New York Times on November 9, 2005. Miller, based in Washington D.C., was a prominent reporter who had access to top U.S. government officials. Her coverage of these government officials made her a controversial figure. In particular, her involvement in the Plame Affair and her reporting on the Bush Administration’s conclusions about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Program made her a conspicuous media personality. In July of 2005, Miller was jailed for contempt of court for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating a leak naming Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent.

Cokie Roberts is a journalist, author and "Contributing Senior News Analyst" to National Public Radio. She cohosted This Week with David Brinkley from 1996 to 2002. Roberts has won numerous awards, such as the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for coverage of Congress and a 1991 Emmy Award for her contribution to "Who is Ross Perot?" She is the author of the national bestseller We Are Our Mother's Daughters as well as Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation (2004).

Helen Thomas is a noted news service reporter, a Hearst Newspapers columnist, and member of the White House Press Corps. She served for fifty-seven years as a correspondent and White House bureau chief for United Press International (UPI). Thomas has covered every president since John F. Kennedy, was the first woman officer of the National Press Club, was the first woman member and president of the White House Correspondents Association, and the first woman member of the Gridiron Club. She has written four books, including her latest, Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public.