Building on three sold-out years, the vibrant Oxford-style public policy debate series, Intelligence Squared U.S., arrives at the Skirball Center for ten provocative and informative live debates on hot-topic issues of the day.
Good riddance to mainstream media
Mainstream media is dying. The network evening news audience is in steady decline; the big three magazine publishers, Time Inc., Condé Nast and Hearst have all closed or consolidated titles; and the newspaper industry has been especially ravaged, with dailies folding across the country. Increasingly people get their news from the internet and from cable channels. Advertisers are moving on to Google and other non-traditional sources. Do these developments leave us better off?
Others argue democratization of news, in an unfiltered internet to which all bloggers and news aggregators have equal access, is a good thing. It encourages a diversity of voices, competing to provide information and analysis. Some feel the public loses when traditional journalistic standards are no longer upheld, and where resources to investigate and report critical stories are no longer available. Can mainstream media re-invent itself to thrive in a digital age? Does it matter?
Panelists for the motion:
John Hockenberry, Jim VandeHei and Michael Wolff
Panelists against the motion:
Katrina vanden Heuvel, David Carr and Phil Bronstein
John Hockenberry is co-host of The Takeaway, a national morning news program co-produced by WNYC Radio and Public Radio International. During his time at ABC and NBC, he earned four Emmy Awards, three Peabody Awards, an Edward R. Murrow Award, and a Casey Medal. Jim VandeHei is executive editor of Politico. In the fall of 2006, VandeHei, along with co-founder John Harris, left the Washington Post to create Politico, now one of the nation’s most influential websites and newspapers. Michael Wolff is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the founder of news aggregator newser.com. His latest book is The Man Who Owns the News (2008), a biography of Rupert Murdoch. Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of the Nation. She is the editor of several books including, Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover (2009) and co-editor of Taking Back America--And Taking Down The Radical Right (2004).David Carr writes a column for the Monday Business section of the New York Times that focuses on media issues including print, digital, film, radio and television. Phil Bronstein began his journalism career in his teens as a film reviewer. He joined the San Francisco Examiner as a reporter in 1980, and beginning in 1983, spent 10 years as a war correspondent where he was a 1986 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his work in the Philippines.
For more information please visit: www.iq2us.org
John Donvan, correspondent for ABC News Nightline, returns to moderate the IQ2US series. The debates can be watched on the Bloomberg Television ® network, are aired by NPR® on more than 185 stations and podcasts are available from iTunes. Newsweek is the IQ2US media sponsor for the 2009/2010 season.
