The Media and the War on Terrorism

The National Press Club’s Professional Affairs Committee and the Newseum will host a program honoring the publication of The Media and the War on Terrorism, co-authored and co-edited by Stephen Hess and Marvin Kalb, and published by the Brookings Institution Press. The book emerges from 20 sessions, at which journalists, war correspondents, present and former government officials and scholars discussed the special roles and responsibilities of journalists in the coverage of modern day terrorism. Hess and Kalb read and edited the transcripts and wrote introductions to the book itself and each chapter in the book, ranging from lessons of wars past to the dangers of biological warfare, from the attacks on New York and the Pentagon to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This unusual book is filled with insights, experiences and quotes, directly from those journalists who cover terrorism to those government officials responsible for analyzing and distributing information to the public. Questions arise: should there be closer cooperation between journalism and the administration in this new kind of warfare? Or have the journalists been too “patriotic” and allowed the administration to conceal information that should have been made public? What in fact has changed in the media/government relationship since 9/11? Are the media properly preparing the public for the next terrorist assault? Or is that not the media’s business?

Panelists:

Karen DeYoung, Visiting Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on sabbatical from her position as associate editor at The Washington Post

Bob Franken, National Correspondent, Cable News Network

Hafez Al-Mirazi, Bureau Chief, Al Jazeera

Victoria Clarke, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs

Marvin Kalb, former correspondent for CBS and NBC and currently a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy and Stephen Hess, a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, will moderate.

Call 202/662-7501 to RSVP.