Award Winning Journalist, German Correspondent Discuss Terrorism

Los Angeles Times journalist Robin Wright and Der Tagesspiegel correspondent Malte Lehming will lead a public symposium on “Ethics in the Media: Reporting the War on Terror” at 2:00 p.m. Sunday, March 30, 2003 at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s Mayerson Hall Auditorium located at 3101 Clifton Avenue. Moderated by Cincinnati scholar and author Dr. Irvine H. “Dusty” Anderson, the program is open to the public and free of charge. This timely discussion offering two prominent, yet different perspectives about the ethical issues of reporting the war on terrorism, is sponsored by the Donald J. and Dr. Norma K. Stone Ethics Lecture Fellowship and presented by the Hebrew Union College-University of Cincinnati Center for the Study of Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems. A reception and book signing by Robin Wright will follow the symposium. Free off-street parking is available. Mayerson Hall is handicapped accessible.

Ms. Wright is the LA Times’ national security correspondent and special analyst on the Middle East for the Gulf War/Chief Diplomatic Correspondent. She has covered nine wars and several revolutions and was one of the first journalists to write about the emergence of Mideast terrorism and Islamic extremism. Mr. Lehming has been the Washington Bureau Chief of the Berlin-based centrist daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel since January 2001. As a foreign editor, he covers security issues, transatlantic relations and the Middle East. Dr. Anderson earned his doctorate in American diplomatic history from University of Cincinnati. He is the author of Aramco, the United States and Saudi Arabia, 1933-1950 (Princeton, 1981). He is currently writing Christian Zionism and Israel: Biblical Influences on British and American Middle East Policy, 1917-1995.

The Donald J. and Dr. Norma K. Stone Ethics Lecture Fellowship was established in 1988 to bring outstanding lecturers in the field of ethics to the Cincinnati community annually. The HUC-UC Ethics Center is grateful for the generous support of Donald J. and Dr. Norma K. Stone.

Established in 1986, the HUC-UC Ethics Center promotes teaching, learning, and research in applied ethics and ethical literature and offers an open and respectful setting for scholarly discourse of various religious and secular ethical traditions. The Ethics Center serves as a resource for faculty, students, professionals, and members of the community to help them identify ethical issues, and to make personal and professional ethical decisions. For more information about the HUC-UC Ethics Center, contact (513) 221-1875, ext. 367.

Founded in Cincinnati in 1875, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the oldest institution of higher Jewish education in the western hemisphere and the academic and professional leadership development center of the Reform Movement. The College-Institute prepares rabbis, cantors, religious school educators, and Jewish communal workers at its four campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles, and Jerusalem. In addition to training professional leadership to serve the Jewish community, HUC-JIR’s School of Graduate Studies awards Masters and Doctoral degrees to men and women of all faiths.

BIOGRAPHIES for Ethics in the Media: Reporting the War on Terror

Robin Wright
Ms. Wright is National Security Correspondent and Special Analyst on the Middle East for the Gulf War/Chief Diplomatic Correspondent for The Los Angeles Times.

She also has reported from more than 130 countries on six continents as a foreign correspondent for CBS News, The Washington Post, and the Christian Science Monitor. Her work also has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Civilization, Current History, Middle East Journal, The New York Times, and London journals The Times, The Guardian, and The Sunday Times.

Awards include the 1989 National Magazine Award for writing from Iran in The New Yorker and the Overseas Press Club Award for “best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and initiative” for the Angolan War. She received a MacArthur Foundation grant and five nominations for Pulitzer prizes.

Ms. Wright has been a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Poynter Fellow at Yale University, a fellow at Duke University, a Media Fellow at Stanford University and a Regents Fellow at the University of California at Santa Barbara. She has been a television commentator on ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN evening news programs, The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, Meet the Press, Face the Nation, This Week with David Brinkley, Today, Good Morning America, CBS Morning News, Nightline, Frontline, Larry King Live, Washington Week in Review, as well as other European and Asian programs.

Foreign assignments include five years in the Middle East, two in Europe, seven in Africa, and several as a roving correspondent in Latin America and Asia. She has covered nine wars and several revolutions. She was one of the first journalists to write about the emergence of Mideast terrorism and Islamic extremism, which she has covered since the 1970s. She has traveled with presidents from Jimmy Carter to President George W. Bush, and Secretaries of State from Henry Kissinger to Colin Powell.

Her latest book, The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran, was selected as one of the 25 most memorable books of the year 2000. Her earlier book Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam was reissued in 2001 with updated chapters from her travels in Afghanistan and running through the September 11th attacks. She is also co-author with Doyle McManus of Flashpoints: Promise and Peril in a New World, which has been translated into six languages, and In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade.

Malte Lehming
Mr. Lehming has been the Washington Bureau Chief of the German daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel since January 2001. He joined Der Tagesspiegel in 1991 as a foreign editor, covering security issues, transatlantic relations and the Middle East, and has been the responsible editor for the feature section since 1997.

Mr. Lehming lived in Israel from 1982 to 1984, organizing seminars about the politics, culture, and religions of the region. As personal assistant to former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt from 1988 to 1991, he worked at the weekly newspaper Die Zeit in Hamburg. He has an M.A.in Philosophy from the University of Hamburg, and has edited several books.

Irvine H. Anderson
Dr. Anderson earned his doctorate in American diplomatic history from the University of Cincinnati. He is the author of Aramco, the United States and Saudi Arabia, 1933-1950 (Princeton, 1981). That book was a Pulitzer nominee. He is currently writing Christian Zionism and Israel: Biblical Influences on British and American Middle East Policy, 1917-1995.

A former lieutenant commander in naval air intelligence, Dr. Anderson has been an associate professor of history at UC’s Raymond Walters College. He has taught college-level courses in American diplomatic history, Middle East politics, Chinese history, Japanese history, and multinational management. He was a manager in human resource development for General Electric Aircraft Engines, and director of the Center for International Business at Xavier University.

Dr. Anderson is a Presbyterian Elder, and has served as chair of the Middle East Committee of the Presbytery of Cincinnati. He has been a board member of HUC-JIR’s Academy for Adult Interfaith Studies, a member of the World Affairs Council of Cincinnati, The Literary Club, and has served as vice president of the International Visitors Council of Greater Cincinnati. Since September 11, 2001, he has lectured extensively on al-Queda, Islam, and Iraq.