Journalist Juan Gonzalez to Speak on Discrimination in U.S. Media

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., February 25, 2011 – Journalist and author Juan Gonzalez will visit Williams College on Tuesday, March 8, to give a talk titled “Discrimination in the U.S. News Media.” The talk, at 4 p.m. in Griffin Hall, room 3, is free and open to the public.

During a career that has spanned more than 30 years, Gonzalez has emerged as one of the country’s best-known and most-respected Latino journalists. Gonzalez has been a staff columnist for The New York Daily News since 1987, and a co-host for the past 14 years of Democracy Now, a daily morning news show that airs on more than 700 community and public radio and television stations across the U.S. and Latin America. His investigative reports on the labor movement, the environment, race relations, and urban policy have garnered numerous accolades, including the 1998 George Polk Award for commentary and a 2004 Leadership Award from the National Hispanic Heritage Foundation. On Democracy Now, his exclusive interviews, along with those of co-host Amy Goodman, with international leaders such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have repeatedly broken major news.

Gonzalez is the author of “Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America,” “Roll Down Your Window: Stories from a Forgotten America,” and “Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Collapse.” He is currently completing a comprehensive history of racial discrimination in the American news media.

One of the original founders of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), Gonzalez served as the association’s president from 2002-2004 and was elected to its Hall of Fame in 2008. During his presidency, he spearheaded a nationwide effort by professional journalists to challenge the Federal Communications Commission’s dismantling of media ownership regulations, launched NAHJ’s innovative Parity Project, and secured more than $1 million from the McCormick Tribune Foundation to expand the project nationwide. In addition to his work with NAHJ, Gonzalez is considered one of the founding fathers of UNITY: Journalists of Color.

Even before he entered journalism, Gonzalez distinguished himself as a leader of the Young Lords, a militant civil rights organization of the late 1960s, and of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights in the 1970s.

Born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, Gonzalez was raised in East Harlem and Brooklyn, N.Y. He received his B.A. from Columbia University, was a visiting professor in public policy at Brooklyn College, and was recently accorded an honorary J.D. from the City University of New York Law School.

END

For building locations on the Williams campus, please consult the map outside the driveway entrance to the Security Office located in Hopkins Hall on Main Street (Rte. 2), next to the Thompson Memorial Chapel, or call the Office of Public Affairs (413) 597-4277. The map can also be found on the web at www.williams.edu/map/

To visit the college on the Internet: http://www.williams.edu/ Williams College can also be found on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/williamscollege and Twitter: http://twitter.com/williamscollege

Published February 25, 2011