SU’s Newhouse School to host C-SPAN founder and CEO Brian Lamb

SU’s Newhouse School to host C-SPAN founder and CEO Brian Lamb November 19, 2008Wendy S. Loughlinwsloughl@syr.edu

C-SPAN founder, CEO and on-air journalist Brian Lamb will visit Syracuse University on Monday, Dec. 1. He will discuss the future of journalism and political reporting at 7:30 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse 3. Newhouse Dean Lorraine Branham will moderate the discussion, after which the audience will be invited to join in a question-and-answer session. The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU pay lots.

Campus coordinators and hosts for the event are Charlotte Grimes, the Knight Chair in Political Reporting at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, and Robert McClure, the Chapple Family Professor of Citizenship and Democracy at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

“Brian Lamb is a calm, insightful and thoughtful presence in broadcast journalism,” says Grimes. “In a world of shouting heads, he stands out as a model of persistent interviewing that actually helps the audience understand important issues. We need more journalists like him.”

Lamb helped found C-SPAN, a public affairs television network that gives American audiences an inside look at government, in 1979. The network airs unedited, live proceedings of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate as well as other daily political events, such as press conferences, White House briefings, interview shows and call-in programs. In a major innovation for broadcast journalism, C-SPAN is entirely funded by fees paid by cable and satellite affiliates who offer C-SPAN programming. It receives no government funding and has no commercial advertising.

In addition to his role as CEO, Lamb is a regular on-air presence and is known for his tough but fair interview style. He has interviewed Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and world leaders including Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev. He also hosted C-SPAN’s “Booknotes,” which ran from 1989–2004 and featured nonfiction authors. Lamb now hosts “Q and A,” an hour-long interview program of people in the news.

Before creating C-SPAN, Lamb served in the U.S. Navy, worked as a freelance reporter for United Press International radio and served as press secretary to the late U.S. Sen. Peter Dominick (R-CO). He also published a biweekly newsletter called The Media Report.

Lamb is the author and editor of several books, including “Abraham Lincoln: Great American Historians on Our Sixteenth President” (PublicAffairs, 2008), a collection of essays about Lincoln. It and other Lamb books will be for sale at the SU Bookstore and at the event.

Lamb’s visit to SU was arranged by alumnus Bob Miron ’59, chairman and CEO of Advance/Newhouse Communications. Miron sits on the Newhouse Advisory Board as well as the executive committee of C-SPAN’s board of directors.

During the day of his visit, Lamb will meet with SU students around campus.

For more information, contact Grimes at (315) 443-2366 or crgimes@syr.edu.