Cronkite School Showcases Speakers, Movies

A Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, two leading journalists from Newsweek, the former editor of The Washington Post and local television news anchors are among the speakers who will be featured at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University this spring.

The school’s Monday night speaker series kicked off on Jan. 26 with CBS5 anchors Catherine Anaya and Kent Dana. They will be followed by Len Downie, the former executive editor of The Washington Post and newest Cronkite faculty member, who will be discussing his new book; Mark Hinojosa, director of new media for the Detroit News; Fox 10 anchor John Hook; Rene Byer, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography, and other prominent local and national journalists.

Speakers are scheduled for every Monday night through April 20, with the exception of March 9, spring break. They are part of the school’s “Must See Mondays” speaker series in The First Amendment Forum.

Other spring events at the school include “Cronkite Night at the Movies,” an evening film series showcasing journalism-themed movies such as “Shattered Glass,” “Network” and “Thank you for Smoking.” The movies, to be viewed on the giant 16-by-9-foot high-definition screen in the First Amendment Forum each Wednesday night and will be preceded by a discussion led by a Cronkite faculty member.

Movie nights and “Must See Mondays” begin at 7 p.m. in The First Amendment Forum, the multi-tiered gathering space in the school’s new six-story, state-of-the-art home at 555 N. Central Ave. on the downtown Phoenix campus. They are free and open to the public.

Other featured events this spring include:

• Feb. 27, a conversation with Newsweek Senior Editor Jonathan Alter, 5:30 p.m. in The First Amendment Forum.
• March 18, a panel discussion about public records access, featuring local professionals from the fields of law and journalism, 7 p.m. in The First Amendment Forum. The panel is being held as part of Sunshine Week, a national initiative that calls attention to the importance of open government and free speech.
• March 23, the Spring 2009 Paul J. Schatt Memorial Lecture, featuring Babak Dehghanpisheh, former Baghdad bureau chief for Newsweek, who will discuss how journalists cover conflict. The lecture is held each year in honor of the late Paul Schatt, a former Arizona Republic editor and longtime faculty associate at the Cronkite School.

For a full schedule of spring events, go to: cronkite.asu.edu/about/events/events.php.