Currier Lecture is highlight of Communication Week

The University will kick off its annual Communication Studies Week today (March 24). A variety of presentations has been planned to benefit students, faculty and professional journalists.

Highlighting the week’s events will be a talk by Bill Dedman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and expert on using the World Wide Web as a reporting resource.

Dedman will speak on “When What We Know Isn’t True, or, Have You Heard the One About Monica Lewinsky’s Boyfrind?” His talk will be held at 8 p.m. Wedesday (March 27) in 308 Bowen-Thompson Student Union. A reception will follow. Dedman will also give other presentations throughout the week on writing, researching and reporting for both students and professional journalists.

Dedman received the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting in 1989 for “The Color of Money,” a series in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on racial discrimination by mortgage lenders. He has conducted Power Reporting seminars on reporting and editing in more than 100 newsrooms, and his Power Reporting Web site is used by many journalists as a starting point in research. He is now a consultant for The Boston Globe, where he writes investigative articles, works with other writers and editors, and trains the news staff in computer-assisted reporting.

Dedman’s talk is part of a lecture series is sponsored by the Department of Journalism and funded through the Florence and Jesse Currier Endowment. Jesse Currier established the journalism department in 1941 and directed it for 27 years. His wife, Florence Currier, was dean of women and founded the Bowling Green chapter of the Association of Women Students and Cap and Gown, a senior women's honor society.

A second notable event in the week is “Current Issues in the Communications Business,” presented by executives in the Block Communications Group. At 1:30 p.m. March 26 in 201 Bowen-Thompson Student Union, representatives William Block Jr., chairman, David Huey, president, Joe Jensen, president of Buckeye TeleSystem, and Bruce Opperman, president of WLIO-Tv, will share their expertise on the newspaper, broadcast, cable television and telephone industries. A question-and-answer session will follow their presentation.

Among the week’s presenters will be Carole Eberly of Central Michigan University, who will talk about her experiences as a journalist in China, and L. Brooks Hill of Trinity University, in Texas, who will give talks on humor and interethnic relations and leadership in organizations and the media.

To view a complete schedule of speakers, visit the School of Communication Studies Web site at www.bgsu.edu/departments/commst/ CommunicationsWeek.html For more information, call Linda Fritz Glomski at 2-8725.