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January 20, 2007
ANDOVER, Mass. — For the second time in this school year, Phillips Academy student Alexander B. Heffner ’08 is getting a chance to take his radio show out to a worldwide audience. His last worldwide show, which was broadcast over the Internet, was an Election Night Special, which he conducted during the evening of November 7, 2006. For that event, Heffner interviewed a distinguished line-up of politicians and political analysts who called in to offer their thoughts on the implications of the election.
For his next show, which will air on Tuesday evening, January 23, Heffner will welcome an equally impressive line-up of guests as he covers the 2007 State of the Union Address by President George W. Bush '64. The broadcast of the “State of the Union Special” will begin promptly at 7:00 p.m. and run to 11:00 p.m., EST. To access the broadcast, listeners can click here.
Members of the Phillips Academy community have been able to listen to Heffner’s talk radio programs for more than two years, as the shows are broadcast once a week by the student-run WPAA Radio Network over the school’s intranet. During his shows, Heffner, the station's political director, discusses politics with a wide variety of guests—including high-profile politicians and political analysts.
His program, now entitled The Political Arena with Alexander Heffner, typically airs on Thursday evening from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m., EST.
For his special January 23 broadcast, Heffner’s guests will include: Michael Barone (Columnist, U.S. News & World Report), Peter Baker (White House Correspondent, The Washington Post), Douglas Brinkley (Presidential Historian, Tulane University), Thomas B. Edsall (Professor, Columbia School of Journalism), John Harwood (National Political Editor, The Wall Street Journal), Carl Leubsdorf (Washington Bureau Chief, Dallas Morning News), Roland Martin (Executive Editor, The Chicago Defender), Bryan DeAngelis (press secretary for Congressman Marty Meehan, MA-05), Scott Rasmussen (President and CEO, Rasmussen Reports), Frank Rich (Columnist, The New York Times), Chuck Todd (Editor-in-Chief, The Hotline), Helen Thomas (Washington Columnist, Hearst Newspapers), Karen Tumulty (National Political Correspondent, Time Magazine), Frank Sesno (Former Washington Bureau Chief, CNN),
Byron York (White House Correspondent, The National Review) .
Following are biographical sketches on the guests who will join Heffner on his “State of the Union Special” broadcast:
Michael Barone is a senior writer for U.S.News & World Report and principal co-author of The Almanac of American Politics--issued every other year since the 1972 edition and nominated for a National Book Award--and Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan (Macmillan Free Press, 1990.) He has published articles in a number of publications including, the Harvard Crimson; Yale Law Review; Washington Post; New York Times; The Wall Street Journal; Los Angeles Times; Newsday; Detroit Free Press; Detroit News; New Republic; National Review; Economist; Reader’s Digest; Reason; American Spectator; Times Literary Supplement; and the Italian publication Libro Aperto. In 1992, he received the Carey McWilliams Award from the American Political Science Association for "a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics." Barone has appeared as an analyst/commentator on various radio and television programs, including: The McLaughlin Group; NBC’s Today; CBS This Morning; Good Morning America; The CBS News; NBC News; Cable News Network; C-SPAN; This Week with David Brinkley; and Meet the Press.
Peter Baker has been a reporter for the Washington Post for 18 years and currently serves as White House correspondent covering President Bush, his second stint on the beat. For four years prior to his current assignment, he and his wife, Susan B. Glasser, were the paper's Moscow Bureau Chiefs, responsible for coverage of Russia and 14 other former Soviet republics. They are the authors of Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin's Russia and the End of Revolution (Scribner, 2005). While overseas, Baker also covered the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Prior to joining The Post's foreign service, Baker was a White House correspondent covering President Clinton, including the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the resulting impeachment battle. He is author of The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton (Scribner, 2000), a New York Times bestseller.
Douglas Brinkley currently serves as director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center for American Civilization and Professor of History at Tulane University. Five of Dr. Brinkley’s books have been selected as New York Times “Notable Books of the Year”: Dean Acheson: The Cold War Years (1992), Driven Patriot: The Life and Times of James Forrestal, with Townsend Hoopes (1992), The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter’s Journey Beyond the White House (1998), Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company and a Century of Progress (2003), and The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast (2006). He won the Benjamin Franklin Award for The American Heritage History of the United States (1998) and the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Naval History Prize for Driven Patriot (1993). Dr. Brinkley is contributing editor for Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times Book Review and American Heritage. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly, he is also a member of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Century Club. In a recent profile, the Chicago Tribune deemed him “America’s new past master.” Forthcoming publications include The Reagan Diaries, and books on Gerald Ford’s presidency and Theodore Roosevelt’s conservation policy.
Tom Edsall is the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism at Columbia School of Journalism. During his twenty-five year career at The Washington Post, he covered all aspects of national politics, including presidential elections, the House and Senate, lobbying, tax policy, demographic trends, social welfare, the politics of race and ethnicity, organized labor, among other topics. He is now a correspondent for The New Republic and The National Journal, and has reported for The Baltimore Sun, The Providence Journal, and contributes TV and radio commentary regularly for CNN, CSPAN, MSNBC, PBS, FOX, and NPR. Edsall is the author of four books: Building Red America (2006); Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (2005); Power and Money: Writing About Politics (1988); and The New Politics of Inequality (1984). He has written extensively for magazines, with articles appearing in American Prospect, The Atlantic Monthly, Civilization, Dissent, Harper's, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and Washington Monthly. Awards include the Carey McWilliams Award of the American Political Science Association, the Bill Pryor Award of the Newspaper Guild, a yearlong fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and five Media Fellowships at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Edsall received a B.A. from Boston University.
John Harwood is Chief Washington Correspondent of CNBC and National Political Editor of The Wall Street Journal. Harwood joined the St. Petersburg Times, reporting on police, investigative projects, local government and politics. Later he became state capital correspondent in Tallahassee, Washington correspondent and Political Editor. While covering national politics, he also traveled extensively to South Africa, where he covered deepening unrest against the apartheid regime. In 1989, Harwood was named a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where he spent the 1989-90 academic year. In 1991, he joined The Wall Street Journal as White House correspondent, covering the administration of the George H. W. Bush. Later Harwood reported on Congress. In 1997, he became the Journal’s Political Editor and chief political correspondent. Harwood writes the newspaper’s political column, Washington Wire, and oversees the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. In March 2006, he joined CNBC as Chief Washington Correspondent. In addition to CNBC, Harwood offers political analysis on NBC’s "Meet the Press" and PBS's "Washington Week in Review," among other television and radio programs. Harwood has covered each of the last five presidential elections.
Carl Leubsdorf has been Washington Bureau Chief of The Dallas Morning News since 1981. Since becoming Washington Bureau Chief of The News in 1981, he has primarily written about the White House and national politics, while directing the paper's political and Washington coverage. He has written a weekly column since 1981, which is distributed nationally by the McClatchy Tribune (MCT) News Service. In 2001, Washingtonian magazine named him one of Washington's top 50 journalists. Leubsdorf has been to 21 national conventions and covered every presidential election since 1960; 2008 will be number 13. He has written about the activities of nine presidents—John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush—and nine vice presidents—Hubert Humphrey, Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Mondale, George Bush, Dan Quayle, Al Gore and Dick Cheney. In addition, he has been a visiting fellow at Yale University; written for the Columbia and Washington Journalism Reviews, and the Annals of the American Academy of Political Science; and appeared on a number of television shows, including CBS's Face the Nation, NBC's Meet the Press, PBS's Washington Week in Review and Lehrer News Hour, CNN's Inside Politics and Reliable Sources, The McLaughlin Group, and CSPAN Journalist Roundtables.
Roland Martin is a nationally recognized award-winning and multifaceted journalist. A nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate and the author of Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith and Speak, Brother! A Black Man's View of America, he also serves as executive editor of the Chicago Defender, the nation's largest black daily newspaper. Martin is a commentator for TV One Cable Network and host of The Roland S. Martin Show on WVON-AM/1690 in Chicago. He can be heard daily from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. A provocative and insightful analyst, Martin has appeared numerous times on CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, Court TV, BET Nightly News, BBC News, National Public Radio, The Word Network and America's Black Forum. Martin provides news reports for American Urban Radio Networks.
Scott Rasmussen is the founder and CEO of Rasmussen Reports. He has been an independent pollster since 1994. Rasmussen has pioneered the use of automated technology to conduct public opinion polling and developed new research techniques to not only measure current public opinion but also to gain better understanding of what events or actions actually change public opinion. He has been called “one of America’s most innovative pollsters” by Michael Barone, Senior Writer of US News & World Report. Rasmussen has developed a reputation for delivering reliable, actionable public opinion data. His work has been cited as among the most accurate in the nation by many including Slate magazine, RealClearPolitics.com, and noted political commentator Larry Sabato. A frequent guest analyst on Fox News Network, Rasmussen and his research have also been featured on CNN, NPR, CNBC, Good Morning America, the Today Show, Hardball, NBC Radio, and on local broadcast outlets in nearly every media market in the nation. In print, his work has appeared on the front pages of USA Today, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, the Christian Science Monitor and many other papers. Rasmussen grew up in the broadcast business. Earlier in his career, he and his father founded ESPN, the cable sports network.
Frank Rich is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. His weekly 1,500-word essay on the intersection of culture and news helped inaugurate the expanded opinion pages that the paper introduced in the Sunday Week in Review section in April 2005. From 2003 to 2005, Rich was the front-page columnist for the Sunday Arts & Leisure section as part of that section’s redesign and expansion. He also serves as senior adviser to the Times’s culture editor on the paper’s overall cultural news report. Rich was previously a columnist on the Op-Ed Page starting in January 1994. In 1999, he began writing a 1,400-word opinion piece that ran on the Op-Ed page every other Saturday (instead of the 700-word piece that ran twice a week) and was given the additional title of senior writer for The New York Times Magazine. During the presidential campaign year of 1992, Rich joined with The Times’s Washington reporter, Maureen Dowd, to write a daily column at the political conventions, repeating the assignment for Inauguration week in Washington in January 1993. Among other honors, Rich received the George Polk Award for commentary in 2005. In addition to his work at The Times, he has written about culture and politics for many other publications. His latest book, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth From 9/11 to Katrina, was published by the Penguin Press in 2006.
Helen Thomas has been a Washington columnist for the Hearst Newspapers since July 2000. Thomas became the first woman officer of the National Press Club after it agreed to admit women as members; the first woman president of the White House Correspondents Association and the first woman member of the Gridiron Club and later its first woman president in 1993. As White House bureau chief for United Press International from 1974 to 2000, she was the first woman to have the privilege of asking the first question at presidential news conferences. Later, UPI and Associated Press alternated on asking the first and second questions. She became the first woman reporter to close a presidential news conference in 1961 during John F. Kennedy's first term with the traditional “Thank you, Mr. President.” She later covered the Justice Department, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, now Health and Human Services and a score of smaller agencies. She began covering Kennedy in the 1960 campaign and was permanently assigned to the White House in 1961. She resigned from UPI in May 2000 and is now a columnist for Hearst Newspapers.
Chuck Todd is Editor-in-Chief of The Hotline, Washington's premier daily briefing on American politics. In his 14 years working at The Hotline or one of its affiliates, Todd has become one of Washington's foremost experts on political campaigns of all levels. In December 2005, Todd was featured in Washingtonian's "Best of" issue in the journalism section. In addition to his The Hotline duties, Todd writes a highly regarded weekly column for NationalJournal.com which focuses on the big picture battles for the White House, control of the Senate and control of the House. He serves as a contributing editor to The Atlantic Monthly where he also occasionally pens political essays. Todd frequently appears on television to offer analysis of campaigns and of political events of the day, including on a weekly basis on C-SPAN's Washington Journal and MSNBC's Hardball. Todd Frequently contributes his own op-ed essays which have been picked up by such organizations as the New York Times and the Washington Post. During the 2004 elections, Todd also had the privilege of moderating one of the few presidential candidate forums in Iowa. Besides Todd's extensive media presence, Todd teaches a graduate-level political communications course at the Johns Hopkins University.
Karen Tumulty has been Time Magazine’s National Political Correspondent since 2001. Tumulty has written cover stories on topics that range from America's love-or-hate relationship with President George Bush, to the role of religion in the 2004 campaign, to the unlikely ascendancy and dramatic fall of Howard Dean, to Arnold Schwarzenegger's bid for the governorship of California. Previously, she was the magazine's White House Correspondent. In addition to appearing on Washington Week, Tumulty also makes frequent appearances on CNN, CNBC and CBS. She joined Time Magazine in October 1994 and covered Congress for two years before moving to the White House, where she was part of the magazine's team covering President Clinton's impeachment. From the White House, Tumulty also wrote major stories on Hillary Rodham Clinton, including a profile of the First Lady that was part of Time Magazine’s 1998 "Men of the Year" package on Bill Clinton and Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. During her earlier stint on Capitol Hill, Tumulty also reported and wrote Time Magazine’s 1995 "Man of the Year" profile of Newt Gingrich.
Frank Sesno has been chronicling world events as a journalist for more than 25 years. Today, Sesno is a University Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University in Washington, DC, where he teaches about the media and its impact on the shape and direction of public policy in America. From 1996 to 2002, Sesno served as the Washington, D.C., bureau chief and senior vice president for CNN. In this capacity, he supervised the network's largest newsgathering team and oversaw the bureau's operations and its editorial direction. Prior to being named Washington bureau chief, Sesno served as White House correspondent, anchor, and analyst for CNN. As executive editor and bureau chief, he reorganized the CNN Washington newsroom, created several new beats and upgraded the graphics department. His experience in news management as well as his reporting of national and international events gives him unique insight and perspective. Sesno has anchored and reported many major international news events, including presidential and economic summits, Middle East Peace talks, and the 50th anniversary of D-Day from Normandy. He has interviewed four American presidents – George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Among other diverse personalities he has interviewed include Hillary Rodham Clinton; Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak; Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat; Israeli Prime Ministers Sharon, Netanyahu, and Rabin; King Hussein of Jordan; and Czech President Vaclav Havel.
Byron York is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, published in April by Crown Forum, which examines the role that the newly-energized left -- exemplified by MoveOn.org, the 527s, Fahrenheit 9/11, the Center for American Progress, Air America, and others -- played in the 2004 presidential campaign. He is the White House correspondent for The National Review, where he has written on topics including the campaign, the battle over the president's judicial nominations, the war on terrorism, the anti-war movement, and the business histories of the president, vice president, and their Democratic critics. He is also a weekly columnist for The Hill, a newspaper about Congress. and has written for the Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and The American Spectator. He has appeared on Meet the Press, Special Report with Brit Hume, Hardball, The O'Reilly Factor, and other television programs, and has contributed occasional commentaries to National Public Radio.
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