News & Media

Muslim journalist M.J. Akbar is founder and editor-in-chief of The Asian Age, an English language newspaper published in India. He's also the author of five books, including his latest, The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict Between Islam & Christianity.

Former New York Times Balkans Bureau Chief and Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Hedges. He's currently living in New York. He has covered war zones in Central America, the Middle East, and the Balkans for over 20 years and is the author of the new book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.

Investigative reporter Michael Berens writes for the Chicago Tribune. His recent series of articles is about the epidemic of life-threatening infections that occur in America's hospitals. He reports that infection rates are soaring and they are exacerbated by hospital cutbacks and carelessness by doctors and nurses. Deaths caused by hospital germs are now the fourth-leading cause of mortality among Americans, and can largely be prevented. Plus the problem is often kept secret by hospitals and it persists because of a lack of government oversight.

Journalist Matthew Brzezinski wrote about the global narcotics industry in the June 23, 2002 issue of the The New York Times Magazine. His cover story is, "Heroin: The Sleek New Business Model for the Ultimate Global Product."

Photographer and reporter Scott Peterson of The Christian Science Monitor has been covering the war on terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks. He is also the paper's Moscow bureau chief, and a former Middle East correspondent. Peterson recently attended a training camp for journalists to learn how to deal with kidnappers and gunmen. He was also a friend of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl. Peterson is the author of the book Me Against My Brother: At War in Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda.

Foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times, Thomas Friedman. He's just won his third Pulitzer Prize, this time for his "clarity of vision, based on extensive reporting, in commenting on the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat." Friedman was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for his international reporting from Lebanon and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting from Isreal. He's also the author of From Beirut to Jerusalem, and The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization.

Advertising great Mary Wells Lawrence. Her career spans the 1960s to the 1980s, and she created many memorable campaigns. She is responsible for the Alka-Selzer "Plop Plop Fizz Fizz," and the slogan, "I Love New York." Her new book is called A Big Life (in Advertising) (Knopf). She is a member of the Advertising Hall of Fame and the Copywriters Hall of Fame.

Journalist John Burns is the Islamabad Bureau Chief for the New York Times. He will talk about reporting on Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the past, Burns has been posted in China, Bosnia, South Africa and Russia. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, one of them in 1997, for his reporting on the Taliban.

Film critic John Powers reviews Harrisons Flowers, starring Andie MacDowell.

The two Washington Post journalists have co-written the book, The News about the News: American Journalism in Peril. (Knopf) Downie has been at the paper since 1964. Hes been executive editor since 1991. Kaiser joined the Post in 1963 and is now associate editor and senior correspondent. Their book is an investigation of why the journalism we watch and read is so bad. They offer suggestions on how to improve the institution.

Rob Siegel and Carol Kolb of The Onion. It's a weekly national newspaper and Web site. The satirical tabloid-style dispatch has headlines like "Lowest Common Denominator Continues to Plummet" and "U.S. Vows to Defeat Whoever It Is We're at War With." Siegel is The Onion's editor-in-chief and Kolb is the senior editor. The Onion began in 1988 as an alternative weekly newspaper and went online in 1996.

He is the cartoon editor of the New Yorker magazine. His new book is The Naked Cartoonist: A New Way to Enhance Creativity. It's a how-to of cartooning and a collection of New Yorker cartoons, including many of Mankoff’s own.

Boston Globe reporters Walter Robinson and Mike Rezendes. They're part of the investigative staff that broke the story of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The staff has written a new book about the scandal called Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church. In January of 2002, the Globe published a two-part series revealing the details of a decades-long cover-up by the Boston Archdiocese. They told how a pedophile priest had been shuttled from parish to parish, and of the millions of dollars paid to victims to keep the story secret.

Journalist David E. Hoffman's new book is called The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia. He profiles a group of men who became leaders in post-soviet Russia, taking over industry, commanding private armies and buying up television stations. Hoffman is the former Moscow Bureau chief for the Washington Post. Now he is based in D.C. as the newspapers Foreign Editor.

Michael Kinsley, editor of the online newsmagazine Slate. Hes just announced that hes stepping down from the position. Slate has been a very successful Web site, with over 2 million visitors each month. Kinsley told the New York Times that throughout his career, he has changed jobs every five or six years since he tends to get bored. He will continue to write for the Web site. Previously, Kinsley was editor of the New Republic magazine and co-host of CNNs Crossfire.

Journalist Andrew Meldrum is the Guardian Zimbabwe correspondent. Currently, he covers the upcoming presidential election in Zimbabwe and the crackdown that the media faces as election time nears. In the past few weeks, he written a series of articles focusing on the bill President Mugabe signed, requiring all journalists working in Zimbabwe to have a license from the Minister of Information.

Last year, Journalist David Cay Johnston won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the U.S. tax code. He writes about tax inequities, tax loopholes and the IRS for The New York Times. He will talk about how Enron and other large corporations get away with not paying taxes, and how the current economy and the war against terrorism will effect the proposed tax cuts.

Journalist Charles Sennott has just returned from Afghanistan, where he traveled with the Special Forces. He also the author of the new book, The Body and The Blood: The Holy Land Christians At the Turn of a New Millennium (PublicAffairs). Sennott was the Boston Globe Middle East bureau chief, and is currently the Globe European bureau chief. He lives in London.

Journalist Sebastian Junger has just returned from Afghanistan, where he was traveling with the Northern Alliance. Last year he was also in Afghanistan following Ahmad Shah Massoud, (known as the "Lion of Panjshir"), the legendary leader of the guerrilla war against the Soviets, who had been fighting the Taliban. Massoud was assassinated by Osama bin Laden's associates in September. Junger is also the author of the bestseller The Perfect Storm, and his new book, Fire.

Peter Bergen is a former correspondent/producer and current terrorism consultant for CNN, and the author of the book Holy War Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden. (The Free Press) It both a biography of Bin Laden and an explanation of bin Laden global network. While at CNN, Bergen produced bin Laden first TV interview, filmed at his mountain hideout in Afghanistan. Bergen has written about Islamist militant groups for The New Republic, London Daily Telegraph and The Washington Times.