Fall 2011 celebrating years 25 with the Shorenstein center New25 Communications EXPLORING: Program Director Jeffrey L. Seglin, Lecturer in Pubic The Media and Politics Frontier Policy, has joined HKS as the direc- tor of the Commu- nications Program, now affiliated with the Shorenstein Shorenstein Center Celebrates 25 Years Center. From 2004 through 2010, he For 25 years, the Shorenstein Center has brought together the interconnected worlds of media, politics and public wrote an ethics column distributed by The policy. To celebrate its anniversary, the Center hosted a New York Times Syndicate, and from 1998 weekend of conversations with leaders in new media and through 2004, Seglin wrote a monthly politics to look forward to a future of engagement and business ethics column for the Sunday New excellence. See page 3 for more on the events. York Times Money and Business section. From 1999 until 2011, he was a tenured associate professor at Emerson College in Boston where he was also the director of the graduate program in publishing and Fall 2011 Fellows and Visiting Faculty writing. Seglin holds a master’s degree in theological studies from Harvard Divin- The Shorenstein ity School, and a Bachelor of Arts degree Center is pleased in English from Bethany College in West to announce its fall Virginia. Fellows. Under Seglin’s direction, the Communi- “This semester’s cations Program sponsored a robust lineup group of Fellows is of fall workshops for HKS students on truly dazzling, with topics such as using the live web and social superb people at media, documentary filmmaking, on-cam- the cutting edge of era interviewing, writing op-ed pieces and politics, journalism, campaigning with Twitter and Facebook. and scholarship— Luci Herman, who has taught as Adjunct and, with Vivek Lecturer, has been promoted to Lecturer Kundra—perhaps in Public Policy in the Communications the top person in the Program. nation to illuminate After nearly 20 years as the HKS Com- where all these dis- munications Program Director, Marie ciplines meet digital Danziger stepped down in June 2011. former U.S. Chief Information Officer; technology,” said Alex S. Jones, director of Renée Loth, The Boston Globe; the Shorenstein Center. Fritz Mayer, Duke University; and IN THIS ISSUE Five Shorenstein Fellows will spend the Mark McKinnon, communications semester researching and writing a paper, T.H. White Lecture ...................................... 2 strategist. Visiting Faculty is Gina Glantz, and interacting with students and mem- Video Contest Winners ............................. 3 Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy. bers of the Harvard community. Conversation with Sec. Geithner .......... 5 The fall Fellows are Neal Gabler, author, See page 4 for complete bios of the Fellows. An Empire of Their Own; Vivek Kundra, Scholarship Winner .................................... 6 2 JOAN SHORENSTEIN CENTER ON THE PRESS, POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLIcy Andrew Sullivan Delivers Annual Thomas Frank Theodore H. White Lecture: Receives “Conservatism and Its Discontents” Nyhan Prize Thursday, November 17, 2011, at the John The 2011 David Nyhan Prize for F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. Political Journalism was given to The Theodore H. White Lectureship Thomas Frank, author of several on Press and Politics commemorates the books, including What’s the Matter life of the reporter and historian who set with Kansas? and The Wrecking Crew. the standard for contemporary politi- He is a columnist and contributing cal journalism and campaign coverage. editor for Harper’s magazine and White’s landmark book The Making of the has been a contributing editor to President, 1960, subsequent volumes on the magazine since 2004. The prize later campaigns, and America in Search of was awarded before the Theodore H. The 22nd annual Theodore H. White Itself, all remain vital historical documents White Lecture on Press and Politics Lecture on Press and Politics was given on campaigns and the press. The Theodore on November 17, 2011, at the John F. by Andrew Sullivan, one of the world’s H. White Lecture was inaugurated in 1989 Kennedy Jr. Forum. most widely read bloggers. He is a with a panel that included R. W. Apple Jr., political commentator and the author of John King Fairbank and Ben Bradlee and five books. His blog now appears on The is delivered annually by a noted politician Daily Beast. The Lecture took place on or journalist. Clay Shirky Gives Salant always expended an extraordinary amount of resources to keep their people from Lecture on communicating with one another or with the outside world.” Freedom of Shirky concluded by looking to the future: “I can think of nothing I would the Press recommend more highly to Shorenstein Clay Shirky and Alex S. Jones. in the next 25 years than thinking through the possibility of political speech in a post-national environment and securing As a part of the Shorenstein Center’s 25th how nation states and post-national media for ourselves some of the advantages we anniversary, Clay Shirky, Professor of New environments interact, but because we enjoyed in securing political speech in a Media at New York University and author don’t. We don’t. And the reaction to that national environment. of Cognitive Surplus, delivered the fourth change, the reaction to the enormous “We could do this. We could see that annual Richard S. Salant Lecture on Free- increase in free speech as an actual practi- this increase in freedom of expression, dom of the Press. cal capability could leave us in a consider- the practical lived experience for billions Shirky began his lecture with a tour of ably worse state than we are now. of people worldwide remains part of the the historical tension between “the actual “There is a lot of attention paid when global fabric of conversation. But we could technical capability and a set of legal and thinking about freedom of speech, particu- also lose. Not all counter reformations fail. policy restraints that envelop and shape larly as regards to the use of the Internet, Last time maybe we just got lucky.” that capability.” on the world’s autocracies, on Iran, on “This is a dangerous moment for free China, on Cuba. But of course there is Full transcript, video and mp3 at speech,” he said, “not because we know nothing new there. Autocracies have www.shorensteincenter.org. www.shorensteincenter.org JOAN SHORENSTEIN CENTER ON THE PRESS, POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLIcy 3 Recaps, video, audio and Celebrating 25 Years with the Shorenstein Center transcripts available at Two days of provocative conversation and forward thinking www.shorensteincenter.org Ken Auletta, New Yorker columnist, spoke with Vivek Kundra, Shoren- New York Times columnist David Carr spoke with Danah Boyd, stein Center Fellow and former U.S. Chief Information Officer. senior researcher for Microsoft Research. Carole Shorenstein Hays, Alex S. Jones and Doug Shorenstein celebrate the Center’s anniversary. Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, spoke with Joichi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab. Xeni Jardin, founding partner and co-editor of Boing Boing, spoke with Miles O’Brien, science correspondent, PBS HKS Lecturer in Public Policy Nicco Mele and Morra Aarons- NewsHour. Mele live-tweeted during the conversations. The Shorenstein Center sponsored a video competition in What Is the honor of its 25th anniversary. Morra Aarons-Mele, HKS alumna and founder of Women Online, administered the Future of News? contest, and through social media networks, put out a call for short videos that answered the question, “What is the future Video contest of news?” Catherine Orr and Elena Rue were the grand-prize searches for answers winners for their video, “Sharing.” They received a cash prize of $2,000. Lujain Ismail Shafeeq and David Porter were final- Marvin Kalb, the Shorenstein Center’s ists and each received a $500 prize. founding director, reflected on 25 years. The judges were Lorie Conway, docu- mentary filmmaker; Rick Kaplan, executive producer, This Week with Christiane Amanpour, ABC News; and Mark Whitaker, executive vice president and managing editor, CNN. Watch the videos at Catherine Orr, Lujain Ismail Shafeeq, David Porter, Elena Rue www.shorensteincenter.org. Jonathan Moore and former Fellow Wil- liam Powers reconnected at the event. @ShorensteinCtr 4 JOAN SHORENSTEIN CENTER ON THE PRESS, POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLIcy FALLFELLOWS NEAL GABLER is the author VIVEK KUNDRA was of a number of best-selling and appointed as the first United prize-winning books, including States Chief Information Officer An Empire of Their Own: How by President Obama and is the Jews Invented Hollywood. credited with saving over $3 He is a regular contributor to billion in taxpayer dollars, numerous publications and adopting game-changing NEAL served as a panelist on “Fox VIVEK technologies in the public News Watch” from 2002 until sector, strengthening the GABLER 2007. He has been the host KUNDRA cybersecurity posture of the of the PBS movie review program Sneak Previews; American nation and launching an open government movement through Movie Classics; Reel to Real on the History Channel; and he is the data.gov platform, which has been replicated across 21 currently the host of Reel Thirteen on WNET, for which he won nations, 29 states, 11 cities and several international organizations. an Emmy in 2009. He is a Senior Fellow at the Norman Lear Prior to joining the Obama administration, Kundra served in Center for the Study of Society and Entertainment at USC and a Mayor Fenty’s cabinet as the CTO for the District of Columbia visiting professor at SUNY Stony Brook. Gabler’s project at the and Governor Kaine’s cabinet as Assistant Secretary of Commerce Shorenstein Center, as part of a biography of Senator Edward and Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Kundra’s M. Kennedy, will trace Kennedy’s press coverage over time, to research at the Shorenstein Center will focus on the implications understand the influences that determined the coverage, and to of digital media and technology on governance.