Source: Gloria Freeland, 785-532-0721, gfreela@k-state.edu
Photo available. Contact media@k-state.edu or 785-532-6415
Monday, August 13, 2007
CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY DIRECTOR TO DELIVER K-STATE'S EIGHTH HUCK BOYD LECTURE SEPT. 20
MANHATTAN -- Bill Buzenberg, the executive director of the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., will be the speaker for Kansas State University's eighth Huck Boyd Lecture in Community Media.
The lecture will be at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 20, in Forum Hall at the K-State Student Union. Buzenberg will discuss the critical need for the public to hear from diverse sources of information.
A K-State alum, Buzenberg became executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog investigative journalism organization, in January. He has been a correspondent, editor and news executive at newspapers and in public radio for more than 35 years.
Most recently, as senior vice president of news at American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio, Buzenberg launched such programming initiatives as American RadioWorks, public radio's major documentary and investigative journalism unit, and "Speaking of Faith," public radio's signature program on religion. He also began Public Insight Journalism, which uses the latest technology to draw knowledge from the audience.
Buzenberg was vice president of news and information at National Public Radio from 1990-97, where he was responsible for launching "Talk of the Nation" and the expansion of "All Things Considered," as well as the extension of newscast services to 24 hours a day. During his tenure, National Public Radio's News Division was honored with nine DuPont-Columbia Batons and 10 Peabody Awards. Buzenberg joined National Public Radio in 1978 as the first reporter to help start "Morning Edition." For 11 years, he was a foreign affairs correspondent based mostly in Washington, D.C. He was named London bureau chief in 1986 and became the first managing editor of National Public Radio in 1989.
Buzenberg began his journalism career in newspapers, working for a brief time for the Manhattan Mercury and the Topeka Daily Capital, as well as for five years on the Colorado Springs Sun where he was city editor in the early to mid-1970s.
He also was a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia from 1968 to 1970.
Buzenberg has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award, public radio's highest honor. He was co-editor of the memoirs of the late Richard Salant, the late CBS news president. "Salant, CBS, and the Battle for the Soul of Broadcast Journalism" was published in 1998 by Westview Press.
Buzenberg studied at the University of Michigan in its mid-career professional journalism fellowship program and was in the master's program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy. He also was a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
The Huck Boyd National Center for Community Media, a part of the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at K-State, has sponsored seven previous lectures in community media. The purpose of the lectures is to recognize the role of community journalists in helping to keep their communities strong. The inaugural lecture was given in 1999 by Bob Dole, former U.S. senator from Kansas. Other lecturers have included Paul Simon, the late U.S. senator from Illinois, in 2001; Bill Kurtis, the longtime broadcast journalist, in 2002; Jim Richardson, photojournalist for National Geographic, in 2003; Susan Edgerley, metropolitan editor of the New York Times, in 2004; Joe Posnanski, sports columnist for the Kansas City Star, in 2005; and Clara Reyes, publisher of Dos Mundos in Kansas City, in 2006.