Friends of the Library WelcomePulitzer Prize-winning Author Jon Meacham to the College of Charleston
October 12, 2012
Tuesday,October 30 – At 7:15pm, Mr. Meacham will deliver keynoteaddressentitled “The Media’s Secret Bias: Liberals, Conservatives, and theTruth about the News”.
CHARLESTON, SC – October 12, 2012 – The Friends of the Library will welcome Jon Meacham, presidential historian, contributing editor atTime and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, to the College ofCharleston on Tuesday,October 30, 2012. Known as a skilled raconteur andan eloquent speaker with a depth of knowledge about history, politicsand religion,Meacham is one of America’s most prominent public intellectuals andunderstands how issues and events impact our lives. Mr. Meacham’sappearance is part of the Friends of the Library Addlestone Authors’Series.
Mr. Meacham will speak tostudents in Communication and Political Science, as well as the HonorsCollege, that afternoon. At 7:15pm, Mr. Meacham will deliver keynoteaddressentitled “The Media’s Secret Bias: Liberals, Conservatives, and theTruth about the News”. Tickets for the keynote address are available forpurchase athttp://fol.cofc.edu.
For some, the key tounderstanding the media is ideology – that outlets are driven bypolitics rather than objectivity. There is much truth to this, and the21st century is now more like the 18thand 19th in terms of partisan news. But there’s an even morefundamental point Americans should grasp: that many journalists aredriven as much by conflict as by creeds. Jon Meacham brings renewedperspective to the issue of media bias, grounded in historicalanalysis and his own life’s work with print and television news mediaoutlets. Meacham cuts to the core of media bias, explaining how politicsand human nature shape the news you see and read.
Mr. Meacham’s New York Time bestseller,American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, won thePulitzer Prize for biography in 2009 and was cited as an “unlikelyportrait of a not always admirable democrat, but a pivotal president,written with an agileprose that brings the Jackson saga to life. His biography, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, is scheduled for a November 13, 2012 release. He is also working on a biography of President George H.W. Bush.
His other New York Times bestsellers include Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, which explored the fascinating relationship between the two great leaders who piloted the free world to victoryin World War II, and American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation.As executive vice president and executive editor at the Random HousePublishing Group, Mr. Meacham currently is editinga book by Al Gore and a series of e-books published by Politico on the2012 presidential campaign. Mr. Meacham is a regular guest onMorning Joe and has appeared on such programs asCharlie Rose, Meet The Press, The O’Reilly Factorand The Colbert Report. After serving as managing editor ofNewsweek for eight years, Mr. Meacham was responsible for allday-to-day editorial operations of the magazine as editor from 2006 to2010. TheNew York Times called him “one of the most influential editors in the news magazine business.”
