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November 4, 2006
ANDOVER — For nearly two years now, members of the Phillips Academy community have been able to tune in once a week to the student-run WPAA Radio Network to listen as Alexander B. Heffner, the station's political director, discusses politics with a wide variety of guests—including Congressional candidates from all across the country. On Tuesday evening, Nov. 7, however, Heffner will get the chance to significantly expand his audience, thanks to a decision by Andover’s senior administration to allow him to broadcast his “Election Night Special” over the World Wide Web.
Now an 11th-grader at Andover, Heffner founded his show, The Progressive Mind, in the spring of 2005, and has used it as a vehicle to review and analyze national political affairs. For the past year, as part of his “Campaign Forum” series, he has interviewed candidates running for office in states as far away as Texas and California as well as number of prominent political commentators,
including Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, and Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans of America. Tuesday night’s broadcast marks the culminating event of that series. These interviews can be accessed at www.wpaa.com.
For this show, Heffner has put together an impressive line-up of guests who will call in to discuss the 2006 mid-term congressional and gubernatorial elections. In addition to being joined by representatives of the PA Democrat and Republican student community, his call-in guests will include Peter Canellos (Washington Bureau Chief, The Boston Globe), Michael Crowley (Congressional Correspondent, The New Republic), Susan Estrich (former National Campaign Manager for Michael Dukakis), Joshua Green (Senior Political Editor, The Atlantic Monthly), Matthew R. Kerbel (Professor of Political Science, Villanova University), Andrea Stone (Congressional Correspondent, USA Today), Matthew V. Smyth (Director of Communications, University of Virginia’s Center for Politics), Sheryl Gay Stolberg (White House Correspondent, The New York Times.), and Judy Woodruff (PBS Political Correspondent). In addition, Phillips Academy alumna Sarah Chayes '80 (former International Correspondent, NPR) and alumnus Evan Thomas '69 (Assistant Managing Editor, Newsweek) will join the programming to offer their insight and analysis. These distinguished commentators will offer their thoughts on the campaign season and the political implications of the incoming poll results.
"This broadcast is inspired by my own interest in the American political system," said Heffner. "I love to be in the cross-section of journalism and politics. I thought that online student-led coverage of a pivotal mid-term election would be a public service to the Phillips Academy and worldwide community."
The broadcast of The Progressive Mind’s “Election Night Special” will begin at 7:00 p.m. EST and run to midnight. To access the broadcast, listeners can click here or they can go to the Phillips Academy home page at www.andover.edu and click on the broadcast link located there.
Following the Tuesday night broadcast, the distribution of Heffner’s show will once again be restricted to the Andover community, but Heffner plans to continue to interview guests about the political and public policy implications of Tuesday's election results. In 2007, the program will begin two new series: "Presidential Campaign Forum 2008," during which he will interview potential and declared 2008 presidential candidates, and "Conversation with America's Governors," during which Heffner will interview a handful of state governors. Heffner's show normally airs on Thursday evenings between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m. EST.
Following are biographical sketches on the guests who will join Heffner on his “Election Night Special” broadcast:
Sarah Chayes (PA, ’80) is a former international reporter and war correspondent for National Public Radio (NPR) who spent several years based in Paris. Her work during the Kosovo crisis of 1999 earned her the Foreign Press Club and Sigma Delta Chi awards. Following an assignment covering the U.S invasion of Afghanistan, Chayes left reporting in 2002 to remain in the field in Afghanistan. With President Hamid Karzai's older brother Qayum, she established Afghans for Civil Society in Kandahar. Among other projects, ACS rebuilt a village, and launched a radio station and a successful women's income generation project. In 2004, she left ACS to focus on economic development, and since May 2005 has been running Arghand. Chayes' book on post-Taliban Kandahar, The Punishment of Virtue, was released in August.
Evan Thomas (PA, ’69) has been assistant managing editor at Newsweek since 1991. He is the magazine’s lead writer on major news stories and the author of many longer features, including Newsweek’s special behind-the-scenes issues on presidential elections. He has written more than one hundred cover stories. For 10 years, 1986-1996, Thomas was Newsweek’s Washington bureau chief. He has appeared on numerous television shows as a commentator, including NBC’s Meet the Press and Today, CBS’s Face the Nation, and ABC’s Nightline and Good Morning America. He appears regularly on the syndicated radio show Imus in the Morning. Thomas is the author of five books, all published by Simon & Schuster. These include John Paul Jones and the New York Times best seller, Robert Kennedy: His Life. His sixth book, Ships in the Night: Four Naval Commanders and the Last Sea War, will be published by Simon & Schuster at the end of 2006.
Peter S. Canellos is The Boston Globe's Deputy Managing Editor and chief of its Washington bureau. Canellos has served as DME/Washington since March of 2003, leading the Globe’s bureau in its coverage of the 2004 presidential campaign and the insurgency in Iraq, among many other national issues. Before taking the Washington post, Canellos oversaw the Globe's local news operation as Deputy Managing Editor/Metro, including responsibility for all news coverage throughout the Boston area and New England, plus the Globe’s weekly Health and Science, Education, and Ideas sections.
Michael Crowley writes about Congress, national politics, and other topics for The New Republic. Before joining TNR in 2000, he worked for The Boston Globe and The Boston Phoenix. Crowley has also written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Slate, The New York Observer, The Washington Monthly, New York magazine, and other publications. He is a 1994 graduate of Yale University.
Susan R. Estrich, Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science, teaches Criminal Law, Gender Discrimination, and Election Law at USC Law. She has clerked for the late Honorable J. Skelly Wright, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and The Honorable John Paul Stevens, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. She was also special assistant to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and staff counsel and special assistant to the chief counsel for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. She has been actively involved in Democratic presidential politics, serving as national campaign manager of the Dukakis-Bentsen campaign in 1988. She is a syndicated columnist for Creators Syndicate, and has written for USA Today and the Los Angeles Times. She is a frequent commentator on law and politics for FOX News, and an occasional talk radio show host. Her most recent book is Soulless: Ann Coulter and the Right-Wing Church of Hate.
Joshua Green is a senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly who has covered politics since joining the magazine in 2003. He has also written for The New Yorker, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and other publications. Previously, he was an editor at The Washington Monthly. He began his career as editor at the satirical weekly, The Onion (back at a time when that failed to impress anyone). Recently he was named one of Columbia Journalism Review's ten young writers on the rise and was a finalist for the Livingston Award. His writing has been anthologized in books ranging from The Best American Political Writing 2005 to The Bob Marley Reader.
Matthew R. Kerbel is professor of political science at Villanova University, where he teaches and writes about how the mass media influence American politics, especially national political campaigns and presidential governance. He is the author of five books and numerous articles on media politics, including If It Bleeds, It Leads: An Anatomy of Television News and Remote and Controlled: Media Politics in a Cynical Age. He is also the editor of Get This Party Started: How Progressives Can Fight Back and Win. Kerbel holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and is a former television news writer and radio news reporter.
Matthew V. Smyth is the Director of Communications at the University of Virginia Center for Politics, as well as the senior editor and writer for Sabato's Crystal Ball, a political analysis Web site created by Center director Larry Sabato. Matt has appeared on CNN's Inside Politics and has been a guest on the Mitch Albom Show.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg covers the White House for The New York Times. She spent four years covering Congress, and has also written about medical issues for the Times. Prior to joining the Times in 1997, she worked for The Los Angeles Times and The Providence Journal in Providence, R.I.
Andrea Stone covers Congress, national politics and foreign affairs for USA TODAY. She covers a wide range of issues on Capitol Hill but focuses on politically charged social issues that include stem cell research, gay marriage, abortion, and gun control. Until September 2002, she was the newspaper’s senior Pentagon correspondent, serving on the beat for 5 1/2 years. Stone was embedded with U.S. troops in Albania and Afghanistan and with Israeli troops during the 2005 disengagement in Gaza. She has reported from 25 countries, including Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
Judy Woodruff has covered politics and other news for more than three decades at CNN, PBS and NBC. Woodruff left CNN full-time in June 2005 to pursue longer-form journalism opportunities, but will remain a consultant and occasional contributor to CNN. Through 2006, she is working with PBS to develop a project that will consist of interviews with American young people and a series of reports to the nation on their views. In the 2005 fall semester, Woodruff was a visiting fellow at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, where she led a study group for students on contemporary issues in journalism.
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