EVENT ONE

FIGHTING FOR AIR
The Battle to Control America's Media

A Dialogue with Author Eric Klinenberg

Wednesday, January 17
12:00-1:30 P.M.
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
800 S. Halsted St.
Residents' Dining Hall
This program is free and open to the public. A free lunch will be served.
Reservations are recommended and can be made by calling the Jane Addams Hull- House Museum at 312.413.5353.

Today when a media conglomerate buys yet another radio station, yet another television station, yet another newspaper, it barely makes the nightly news or the front page. In Fighting for Air, sociologist Eric Klinenberg examines how damaging media conglomerates are to society because of the demise of truly local journalism. Klinenberg forcefully shows how the large conglomerates undermine the media's diversity and community-service mission across America, leaving individuals more disconnected from society than ever before.

The book also includes a study of local projects in Lawndale and other Chicago areas where underdogs are fighting back! Join the discussion with Klinenberg, author of the highly acclaimed Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, as we discuss the role of local media and the forces that threaten it today.

Eric Klinenberg has written an extraordinary and powerful account of the devastating elimination of localism in U.S. media and journalism, and how Americans from all walks of life are rising up to challenge the great media crisis that grips our nation today. Brilliantly written and tightly argued, Fighting for Air is the perfect book for anyone wanting to understand what is going on in this country, and why it is so important to our future.
-Robert W. McChesney, author of The Problem of the Media

Eric Klinenberg is Associate Professor of Sociology at New York University. His first book, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, was profiled in The New Yorker as well as a variety of other national media outlets. The recipient of numerous academic awards and fellowships, he has also written for Rolling Stone, The Nation, and Slate.

EVENT TWO

MEDIA CONTACT: Wendy Leopold at 847-491-4890 or w-leopold (at) northwestern.edu
Klinenberg to Discuss the Battle to Control America's Media

EVANSTON, Ill. --- New York University sociologist Eric Klinenberg will speak about the corporate takeover of local news and what it means for all Americans when he delivers the first Crain Lecture of 2007 Thursday, Jan. 18, at Northwestern University.

Titled “Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media,” the 4 p.m. lecture in the McCormick Tribune Center Forum, 1870 Campus Drive, Evanston campus, is free and open to the public.

The lecture title takes its title from Klinenberg's latest book, which will be published Jan. 9 by Metropolitan Books. His first book was a widely acclaimed “social autopsy” that detailed how Chicago's 1995 heat wave claimed the lives of more than 700 city residents.

Klinenberg's new book opens with an account of a 2002 train derailment outside a small North Dakota town that created a drifting poisonous cloud of gas that killed one individual and injured more than 1,000.

He explains how -- in an age of canned programming and virtual disc jockeys - warning calls from firemen and rescue workers of the approaching threat went unheard. Nobody was in Clear Channel Communication's studio, the national media giant that owned Minot's six local commercial stations, to take calls from rescue workers.

In “Fighting For Air,” Klinenberg depicts a world of empty TV news stations, pre-programmed radio shows and copycat newspapers that he argues are a result of the federal government's “malign neglect,” as the agencies charged with ensuring diversity and open competition have given control to the very conglomerates that undermine these values and goals.

Klinenberg, a recipient of numerous academic awards and fellowships, writes for popular publications, including Rolling Stone, The Nation and Slate. While teaching at Northwestern, he began work on “Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago,” by embedding himself in newsrooms and learning firsthand how reporters and editors perform their craft amid new technologies and market pressures.

The popular Crain Lecture Series brings prominent newsmakers, news analysts and news reporters to Northwestern University's Medill School. The lecture series is named in honor of Crain Communications founders Gertrude and G.D. Crain Jr. For further information about the Jan. 18 lecture, call (847) 491-5401 or check Medill's Web site at www.medill.northwestern.edu.