President's Forum Event to address terrorism and the media

26 March 2007 President's Forum Event to address terrorism and the media

Afghanistan, Serbia, Iraq: not places at the top of the list for most American travel agents. That is, unless youre a travel agent for terrorism analyst Peter Bergen or producer John Fielding.

Bergen and Fielding are members of a certain class of journalist, duty-bound to cover global hot-spots, who sometimes find themselves in a complex relationship between the stories they cover and the audiences they serve.

The next Presidents Forum Series bring these journalists together, with political scientist Brigitte Nacos of Columbia University, to go beyond the headlines exposing the truth about the relationship between war, terrorism and the media.

The event is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 2 in the Geneva Room.

Bergen is an Emmy-nominated CNN journalist and producer with unprecedented connections inside the murky world of the War on Terror. Bergens latest book is titled The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaedas Leader.

He is currently a Schwartz senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C., an Adjunct Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a research fellow at New York University's Center on Law and Security.

With almost a quarter-century of experience at ABC News and CNN, Fielding is a noted expert on the role of media in the international community. A writer and producer for Peter Jennings, Ted Koppel and Christiane Amanpour, Fielding has won multiple awards for his programming: most notably Arkan, a documentary on the Serbian warlord.

In 2002, he left CNN to become a free-lance writer, working with New York Times Television, World Bank Group, and the Crimes of War Project

Brigitte Nacos, of Columbia University, is a specialist on the role of the press in public affairs and the author of Mass-Mediated Terrorism, a study of how terrorist organizations manipulate the news, often with massive repercussions on American public opinion and presidential decision-making.

Professor Nacos currently teaches courses on politically motivated violence and terrorism. Her previous works include The Press, Presidents and Crises and From Bonn to Berlin: German Politics in Transition.

Copies of Bergen's Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden and The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader, and Nacos's Mass-Mediated Terrorism: The Central Role of the Media in Terrorism and Counterterrorism, are available at The College Store.

Upcoming events in the Presidents Forum Series also include Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter on April 23.