SU’s Newhouse School to host ‘father of PR’ biographer Larry Tye Feb. 17

SU’s Newhouse School to host ‘father of PR’ biographer Larry Tye Feb. 17January 29, 2009Wendy S. Loughlinwsloughl@syr.edu

Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications will host author and journalist Larry Tye on Tuesday, Feb. 17, at 7:30 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse 3. He will speak on Edward Bernays, the “father of public relations,” as part of the Newhouse Leaders in Communications Lecture Series. The event is free and open to the public. Parking is available in SU pay lots.

A former journalist with the Boston Globe, Louisville Courier-Journal and Anniston (Alabama) Star, Tye is author of “The Father of Spin: Edward L. Bernays and the Birth of Public Relations” (Crown, 1998). Bernays is widely regarded as one of the most influential publicists of the 20th century. PR industry historian Scott Cutlip describes Bernays as “perhaps public relations’ most fabulous and fascinating individual, a man who was bright, articulate to excess, and most of all, an innovative thinker and philosopher of this vocation that was in its infancy.”

Tye is also author of “Home Lands: Portraits of the New Jewish Diaspora” (Henry Holt and Co., 2001) and “Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class” (Henry Holt and Co., 2004), and co-author (with Kitty Dukakis) of “Shock: The Healing Power of Electroconvulsive Therapy” (Avery, 2006). His biography of Negro League baseball legend Satchel Paige is due for release in June.

He has won a series of national reporting awards, including the Edward J. Meeman environmental prize, the Livingston Award for Young Journalists and the National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Achievement Award. He has also won awards from the Associated Press, AP Sports Editors, Sigma Delta Chi, the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

A reception will follow his talk. For more information, contact Nancy Sharp at (315) 443-9235 or nwsharp@syr.edu.