March 14, 2006
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Conference on the Future of Television News to be Held at William Paterson University on April 6
Panelists include veteran reporters Eric Ober, Mary Alice Williams, Brian Ross, David Puente and Virginia Rohan
The changing nature of television news will be explored by a distinguished group of panelists who will discuss a range topics, including how the Internet and other new technologies are reshaping the news, the state of investigative news, and whether the future of news lies in information or entertainment, during a program at William Paterson University on Thursday, April 6.
“TV News at a Crossroads” will be held from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in the Nicholas Martini Teleconference Room in Hobart Hall on the campus in Wayne. The event is open to the public. Admission is free.
Panelists include Eric Ober, an award-winning journalist and former president of CBS News; Mary Alice Williams, broadcast journalist for WCBS 880 and the Discovery Health Channel; Brian Ross, chief investigative correspondent for ABC News; David Puente, broadcast producer and anchor for ABC News Now; and Virginia Rohan, media critic for the Record. Joann Lee, professor and chairperson, William Paterson University Department of Communication, will moderate the event.
Eric Ober’s media career spans four decades. He is founder of Crosstown TV, a high-end boutique television and broadband production and consulting company. Ober spent 30 years at CBS as an award-winning journalist and executive, holding such positions as president of CBS News, where he was directly responsible for “60 Minutes,” “48 Hours,” “CBS Reports,” “The CBS Evening News with Dan Rather,” and all 1,500 CBS News employees throughout the world.
Mary Alice Williams, one of the most well-established names in network news, currently works as a correspondent at WCBS 880 and the Discovery Health Channel. She was a founding anchor and vice president of CNN, anchor and correspondent at NBC, writer and host of decade’s worth of programs on PBS and on cable TV. She has won virtually every award in broadcast journalism including a national Emmy Award for anchoring an evening newscast.
Brian Ross is chief investigative correspondent for ABC News. He reports extensively for "20/20," "Primetime," "Nightline," "World News Tonight" and "Good Morning America." Since Sept. 11, 2001, Ross and his team have broken numerous stories about the investigation into the terrorist attacks and anthrax letters. Among several other exclusive reports, Ross was the first reporter to name Mohamed Atta and describe him as the ringleader of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. In just the past few years, Ross' reporting has been recognized with numerous prestigious journalism awards, including three 2003 National Headliners Awards; three 2003 Cine Golden Eagle awards; the 2003 Gerald Loeb Award for business investigation; a 2002 Emmy for outstanding investigative journalism; a 2002 IRE award for investigative reporting; and a 2002 Gracie Allen Award. Prior to joining ABC News, Ross spent 18 years at NBC News, serving as chief investigative correspondent for the news magazine "Dateline NBC."
David Puente is a broadcast producer and anchors a weekly news program for ABC News Now, a broadband video news channel that delivers breaking news events, hourly news briefs, and original reports from ABC News correspondents online. His career in television, radio, print and news media started in the early 1990s in Madrid, Paris and later, London. He also worked in Africa and the Middle East. In 1999, he joined the ABC News staff in New York. In November 2004 Puente created “Exclusiva,” a news program in English for ABC News Now which reports the headlines from Latin America and the Hispanic world. The program is also aired as a podcast in English and translated into Spanish. Puente has won two Emmy awards, one for his work on “ABC 2000,” and the other for his coverage of 9/11.
Virginia Rohan has been a media critic for the Record, a newspaper in Hackensack, for the past 14 years. Born and raised in New York City, Rohan graduated magna cum laude from Fordham University with a B.A. in communications/journalism and worked as a writer/editor at Catholic Near East magazine, Super Mag, and Prentice Hall before joining the Record as a feature writer in 1986. She has won several New Jersey Press Association Awards for critical writing, including a first-place finish in 1993.
Joann Lee is professor and chair of the Communication Department at William Paterson University. Her career in journalism and journalism education spans three decades. As the first Asian American journalist hired by CNN, as well as its first New York correspondent, she covered Wall Street, the United Nations, and the courts. She was also the first Asian American television reporter to be hired for ABC and CBS local affiliate stations in Sacramento, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Prior to joining William Paterson, she was dean, Reynolds School of Journalism, University of Nevada, Reno. She established the journalism program at Queens College, CUNY. As a faculty member of the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, she taught broadcast news and documentaries. She is the author of Asian American Experiences (New Press, 1992) and Asian American Actors (McFarland, 2000).
The program is sponsored by the University’s Communication Department, and is coordinated by Lee and John Rhodes, associate professor, communication. For additional information, please call 973-720-2167.
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www.wpunj.edu
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