Event Archive: 2001

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Oct. 17
Inside the Local News: A PBS Series
It's easy to complain about local TV news. It's much harder to change it. And in a crisis, everyone turns to it. That's what Calvin Skaggs, the award-winning filmmaker, found when his production firm, Lumiere Productions, spent a year inside an NBC TV station in Charlotte, N.C., watching how local news gets made.

On October 17, executive producer Calvin Skaggs and producer Ali Pomery showed excerpts from their five-part PBS series "Local News." An issue that series raised included the hard choices broadcasters faced after a child's murder, during a trial that sparked racial conflict, and after school shootings.

Calvin Skaggs has produced more than two dozen films, including programs for American Playhouse, American Masters, and WonderWorks. Ali Pomeroy is currently working on a history of the documentary form. Contributions from the Ford Foundation made this event possible.


Oct. 21
Filmmakers Forum on Films about War, Peace and Reconciliation
at Common Ground Film Festival
Professor and Center Director Pat Aufderheide moderated a roundtable discussion with film directors participating in the Common Ground Film Festival. The forum included John Michalczyk (Prelude to Kosovo), Sy Rotter (Zegota), Mark Landsman (Peace of Mind), Barbara Sonneborn (Regret to Inform), and Ilan Yagoda (Rain of 1949).

The film festival featured films from seven different countries, including South Africa and Vietnam. It was sponsored by Search for Common Ground, The Center for Global Peace, and the School of Communication in cooperation with The Coexistence Initiative. For more information, click here.


Nov. 7
Cyberjournalist Danny Schechter
The inimitable new media journalist Danny Schechter conducted an interactive presentation on cyberjournalism in wartime. Danny Schechter started calling himself “The News Dissector” when he was a loudmouth radio journalist back in the 1960s. Seizing every new technology that emerged, from Portapaks to PDAs, he went on to be a major investigative journalist and independent voice in international media. Now he’s the head News Dissector on the World Wide Web; his latest book just issued is “News Dissector: Passions, Pieces and Polemics, 1960-2000,” from Akashic Books.

Schechter is the co-founder and executive editor of one of the most ambitious Web-based projects in journalism: mediachannel.org. The service features news from all over the world, in print, audio and video formats. It offers roundups, wrap-ups and hard-hitting critiques.

Before co-founding mediachannel.org, Schechter had worked for ABC’s 20/20, founded the international media production company Globalvision, and created the influential “South Africa Now,” which played a role in the anti-apartheid struggle.


Nov. 28–30
Human Rights Watch Film Festival
Three films were screened by the Center as part of the festival: "Nazareth 2000," a documentary about life in an Arab city, shown from the perspective of two gas station workers; "Jung (War): In the Land of the Mujaheddin," a true story of life under the Taliban, as viewed by a heroic international medical team; and "The Closed Doors," set in Egypt during the Gulf war, is a fictionalized narrative that centers on a teenage boy whose confusion between his longings for his mother and the authoritarian temptations of a local religious leader push him to embrace fundamentalist ideas. A public service announcement on the need for tolerance and understanding after 9-11 called "Hope," by AU grad student Osama Al-Zain, was shown before each session.

Human Rights Watch mobilizes public awareness and action to prevent discrimination, uphold political freedom, protect individuals from inhumane conduct in wartime, and bring offenders to justice. The Center showcases, analyzes, and stimulates the best in social media.

The event was cosponsored by the University Chaplain and Student Services.


Dec. 5
Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker
Award-winning filmmakers on social class in America
Ask yourself: Are you middle class? Working class? Upper class? Oh, really? How do you know? In the funny and insightful PBS documentary "People like Us," the filmmaking duo of Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker have figured it out—not what class you are, but how you know. On December 5, they visited the Center for a screening of their film and discussion of class in America.

“Class can be harder to spot than racial or ethnic differences, yet in many ways it's the most important predictor of what kind of financial and educational opportunities someone will have in life,” Alvarez said. “But class is a hard subject to talk about in a society like ours, where the idea that all people are created equal and that a poor child can become President is enshrined in national legend.

Alvarez and Kolker are America’s roving anthropologists-with-camcorders. They have let us in on America’s many dialects, in "American Tongues." They have revealed the many styles of American motherhood in "Mom." "In Vote for Me," they defied the cynics and showed an America full of people who love local politics. They have made several films, including the acclaimed "Louisiana Boys", which is about the politics and culture of Louisiana.