245 SYNDICATED COLUMNIST DEWAYNE WICKHAM TO SPEAK AT MTSU FEB. 7

SYNDICATED COLUMNIST DEWAYNE WICKHAM TO SPEAK AT MTSU FEB. 7
‘Race, The Media and Presidential Politics’ Launches Yearlong Lecture Series

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Jan. 24, 2008
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Beverly Keel, 615-898-5150 or bkeel@mtsu.edu

(MURFREESBORO)—Nationally syndicated columnist DeWayne Wickham will deliver the lecture "Race, the Media and Presidential Politics: The Truth about the Facts" at MTSU Thursday, Feb. 7.
The event, which begins at 9:45 a.m. in the Keathley University Center Theater, is free and open to the public. The lecture is sponsored by MTSU's Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies.
Wickham is a columnist for USA Today and the Gannett News Service. His syndicated column is distributed to more than 130 daily newspapers in the United States. He also is the director of the Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.
This event, part of the university’s Black History Month activities, is also the first talk in a yearlong series exploring the media and the 2008 presidential election.
“I am delighted that DeWayne will be sharing his observations and insights about the media coverage of this historic presidential race,” said Beverly Keel, director of the Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence. “He has been reporting from the campaign trail, so I am eager to hear his analysis of the truth behind the sound-bites and the candidates’ sparring, and what it all means.”
In June 2007, he was one of three journalists to interview the Democratic presidential candidates on “The All-American Presidential Forums on PBS.” It was the first time presidential candidates were interviewed on national television by a panel made up solely of journalists of color.
During his journalism career, Wickham has covered the U.S. Capitol for U.S. News & World Report and worked as the Washington correspondent for Black Enterprise magazine and as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun and Baltimore Evening Sun newspapers. Wickham also has worked as an analyst for CBS News and as executive editor of BlackAmericaWeb.com.
Wickham covered the Watergate cover-up trial that resulted in the convictions of several top aides to President Richard Nixon. He was a member of the traveling press corps that accompanied Nelson Mandela throughout the United States during his first visit to this country following his release from a South Africa prison in 1990.
On Oct. 15, 1994, Wickham was one of a small group of journalists on the State Department plane that returned exiled Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide to his homeland. In February 1999, Wickham traveled to Cuba and had a six-hour dinner meeting with Fidel Castro.
Wickham holds a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism from the University of Maryland-College Park and a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Baltimore. He is a cofounder of The Trotter Group, an organization of black columnists, and a founding member and former president of the National Association of Black Journalists.
The editor of Thinking Black: Some of the Nation’s Best Black Columnists Speak Their Mind, (Crown Publishers, Inc., 1996), Wickham is the author of Woodholme: A Black Man’s Story of Growing Up Alone, (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995), and Fire At Will, (USA Today Books, 1989) and Bill Clinton and Black America (Ballantine Books, 2002).
For more information about the lecture, please call 615-898-5150 or e-mail bkeel@mtsu.edu.

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IN BRIEF: Nationally syndicated columnist DeWayne Wickham will deliver the lecture "Race, the Media and Presidential Politics: The Truth about the Facts" at MTSU Thursday, Feb. 7, at 9:45 a.m. in the Keathley University Center Theater. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by MTSU's Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies. Part of the university’s Black History Month activities, Wickham’s lecture is also the first in a yearlong series exploring the media and the 2008 presidential election. For more information about the lecture, please call 615-898-5150 or e-mail bkeel@mtsu.edu.


For MTSU news and information, visit www.mtsunews.com.


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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For a color JPEG of DeWayne Wickham to accompany this release, please contact Gina E. Fann in the Office of News and Public Affairs via e-mail at gfann@mtsu.edu or by calling 615-898-5385.

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