Robert Weiner '74: "Media Handling of High Profile Issues"
Robert Weiner '74G, a member of the public affairs senior staff in the
Clinton White House, former communications director for the House
Government Operations Committee and the House Narcotics Committee, and
former Chief of Staff of the House Aging Committee, will use his wide
government experience to critique “Media Handling of High Profile National
Issues,” in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts Dean’s Seminar Series
Lecture.
Weiner, now president of a Washington, DC public affairs
think tank, has directed the pressroom for the last five Democratic
National Conventions, including 2004 convention in Boston. Since leaving
the White House in August 2001, he has authored over 30 op-ed columns in
major newspapers and is a regular weekly commentator for Radio America. He
has appeared on Bill Maher, Crossfire, Today, Good
Morning America, and network evening news programs, and is often
quoted in papers across the country. Weiner’s background goes from
Watergate, where he headed up the Democratic National Committee’s youth
voter registration in 1972 during the Watergate break-in period, to
Whitewater, where he was forced to testify before the Ken Starr Grand Jury
about his and his wife's personal home phone calls; afterward Weiner
asserted that Starr’s harassment was, “Big brother at its worst." The
New York Times credited Weiner for being the first Starr Grand Jury
witness to openly criticize the prosecutor’s overreaching.
Weiner,
who received a master's degree in history from UMass Amherst in 1974, will
also address two classes on November 16 and 17.
Sponsored by the
College of Humanities and Fine Arts
Wednesday, November 16
Campus Center -
904-08
UMass Amherst Campus
4:30 p.m.
Free Admission
Contact:
Laurie Neely
(413) 545-0385
lneely@hfa.umass.edu
