Schorr featured speaker

Daniel Schorr, veteran newsman and senior news analyst for National Public Radio, will be the featured speaker at this year’s Edward R. Murrow Symposium, slated for Wednesday, April 10, in Pullman. Schorr, who is also the winner of the 2002 Excellence in Broadcasting award from Washington State University’ s School of Communication, will speak at 7 p.m. in the Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum. His presentation, titled “Forgive Us Our Press Passes: America and the Media” — based on his book by the same name — is free and open to the public.
With a career spanning more than six decades, he is said to be the last of Edward R. Murrow’s legendary CBS news team who is still fully active in journalism. His awards include three Emmys, decorations from European heads of state, and numerous honors from civil liberties groups and professional organizations for his defense of the First Amendment.
In 1996, he received the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Golden Baton in the category, “Exceptional Contributions to Radio and Television Reporting and Commentary.” The Golden Baton is the most prestigious award in broadcasting, considered the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. Other honors include:
• a Peabody personal award for “a lifetime of uncompromising reporting of the highest integrity”
• the George Polk radio commentary award for “interpretations of national and international events”
• the Distinguished Service Award of the American Society of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communications
• Induction into the Hall of Fame of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Schorr served as a foreign correspondent for 20 years, beginning in 1946 as writer for the “Christian Science Monitor” and later “The New York Times” in Western Europe, witnessing postwar reconstruction, the Marshall Plan and the creation of the NATO alliance. In 1953, he joined CBS News as its diplomatic correspondent in Washington, from where he also traveled on assignment to Latin American, Europe and Asia.
During his career he has covered such events as the:
• Joseph McCarthy hearings in 1953
• Eisenhower-Krushchev meeting in Geneva in 1955
• Krushchev tour of the United States in 1959
• building of the Berlin Wall in the 1960s
• Watergate break-in in 1972
• Reagan-Gorbachev conference in Moscow in 1988
• Clinton impeachment hearings in 1998 and 1999
Schorr has written several books, including “Clearing the Air,” “Don’t Get Sick in America,” “Staying Tuned: A Life in Journalism,” and “Forgive Us Our Press Passes, Selected Works by Daniel Schorr (1972-1998).”
The Murrow Symposium is a free, daylong event focused on the educational, leadership and career opportunities available in the field of communication, particularly through the WSU School of Communication.
Registration deadline for the symposium is April 1. For infor-mation, see .