Friday, October 03, 2003
First Amendment focus of USI Berger Lecture
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The deputy director of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., will deliver the School of Liberal Arts Sydney Berger Lecture October 14 at University of Southern Indiana. Gene Policinski will speak from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. in Mitchell Auditorium in the Health Professions Center. His topic will be “The First Amendment Under Fire: A View from the 21st Century.” Policinski joined the Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press and free speech, in 1996 as a journalist-in-residence. The First Amendment Center, which is part of the Freedom Forum, is dedicated to preserving and protecting First Amendment freedoms. At the Freedom Forum, Policinski also served as special assistant to the chairman and chief executive officer, manager of special programs and outreach, Washington editor of the foundation’s former online news service, and director of media relations and special programs before assuming the role of deputy director of the First Amendment Center in 2000. He also serves as executive producer of Speaking Freely, a weekly program about free expression airing on public television. From 1998 to 2001 he was host of Newseum, an hour-long weekly magazine program broadcast on PBS Worldwide. Policinski’s career as a journalist began in 1969 in Indiana, where he worked as a reporter for The Greenfield Daily-Reporter and as a correspondent for The Indianapolis Star and the Associated Press. He also was a reporter for the Chronicle-Tribune in Marion, Ind.; served as Indiana bureau chief for Gannett News Service; covered Congress, the Pentagon, and the White House for Gannett; was the first Washington editor for USA TODAY; and was on-air host of three news, sports, and information programs on USA TODAY Sky Radio. Policinski’s lecture at USI is free and open to the public. The Sydney Berger Lecture is an annual event sponsored by the USI School of Liberal Arts to honor the memory of Sydney Berger, one of Evansville’s most prominent attorneys and an instructor in constitutional law at USI. Because of Berger’s commitment to individual liberty, the theme of the program relates to civil rights or liberties. The lecture, established in 1996, is underwritten by local attorney Charles Berger, Sydney Berger’s son, and his wife Leslie. |
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