Events

Goodman, Ochberg highlight First Amendment Day activities

The sixth annual First Amendment Day will feature a lecture on censorship by press law expert Mark Goodman and a panel led by psychiatrist Frank Ochberg on the stresses associated with covering stories that put journalists in harm’s way.

First Amendment Day 2008 will be on April 10 at Iowa State University. It is sponsored by the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, the First Amendment Day Committee, the Leo Mores Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the ISU Committee on Lectures and the Iowa State Daily.

The Knight professor of scholastic journalism at Kent State University, Goodman will also give the keynote address at 8 p.m. in the Great Hall of the ISU Memorial Union. Goodman will also work with Greenlee School students, the Iowa State Daily, and high school students and advisers.

Goodman served as director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va., for 22 years before taking the post at Kent State in January.

The previous night, Ochberg, professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University, along with Michael Bugeja, director of the Greenlee School of Journalism, will lead a panel discussion titled “Post Traumatic ‘Press’ Syndrome and the State of the Media.” Also on the panel are Tina Croley of the Detroit Free Press and Donna Alvis-Banks of the Roanoke (Va.) Times. Alvis-Banks is part of the Roanoke Times’ team that covered the Virginia Tech massacre. Their work has been submitted for a Pulitzer Prize.

The panel moderator is Steve Thomas, the editor of the Quad City Times. The panel discussion will be held in 1148 Gerdin in the ISU Business College at 8 p.m.

Ochberg is the author of the book “Posttraumatic Therapy and Victims of Violence” and coined the term Stockholm Syndrome to describe hostages who grow to have sympathy for their captors. He is the founder of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

First Amendment Day festivities will begin on Monday, April 7, with David Satter of the Hudson Institute giving a lecture titled “Russia after the Presidential Elections: Is There Hope for Democracy?” It will be given in the Sun Room of the MU at 6 p.m.

The First Amendment Day Committee will award its annual Champions of the First Amendment Awards on Thursday. Among this year’s recipients are Goodman, for his service to the student press as director of SPLC, and to Deb Buttleman Malcolm, the newspaper adviser at Central High in Davenport, for her international outreach work as an ambassador of freedom of the press. The Champions of the First Amendment awards will be given out during the Feast on the First in Central Campus at midday Thursday.

The Feast on the First will begin with introductory comments from ISU Dean of Students Dione Somerville at 11 a.m. The Feast on the First includes free food, music, drama, soapbox debates and exhibits.

The annual Freedom March will be held that same day. It starts at Ames City Hall, 515 Clark Ave., and ends at the steps of Curtiss Hall. On the steps of Curtiss, participants will recite the First Amendment.

From 10 a.m. until noon, Goodman will lead a seminar with high school students titled “Scholastic Press Freedom in Iowa and Beyond: What’s Protected, What Isn’t and Why It Matters.” That will take place in 101 Design.

The afternoon session includes a panel discussion titled “The First Amendment in a Post-9/11 World.” Moderated by ISU journalism professor Dave Saldana, the panel will be held in 2432 Food Science from 2:15 to 3:30. The panelists include: Peter Erlinder, professor of constitutional law at William Mitchell Law School; Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild; Kevin Bankston, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation; and Gene Choo, senior producer for NBC News.

Following that panel will be a lecture by University of Texas associate professor Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte titled “The Art of Inclusion: Getting the Entire School on the Pages of Your Publication.” It also will be held in 2432 Food Science. De Uriarte teaches at the School of Journalism at UT.

Lindsay Gilbert, a counselor in the Greenlee School, will lead a seminar titled “Your Future in College” in 1148 Gerdin from 5 until 6:30.

For more information, contact David Bulla, the First Amendment Day Committee co-chair, at dbulla@iastate.edu  or Gilbert at lsg@iastate.edu.