How has a shifting media landscape affected reporters and readers? What can the American public do to combat the rise in so-called fake news? These questions and more will be the subject of a panel 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3 at Weinstein Auditorium in Wright Hall at Smith College.
The discussion, “Navigating the News: Safeguarding Journalism in an Age of Misinformation,” will feature three Smith College alumnae: Sarah E. Baker, Carolina A. Miranda and Kate O’Brian. The event will be moderated by Brooke Hauser, editor in chief at the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
Sarah E. Baker ’03, currently the booking director for MSNBC, is the point of contact for guests and contributors in Washington, D.C. A longtime TV producer, she previously worked as NBC’s news coordinating political producer/ booker; as a senior producer at ABC News; a senior editorial producer at CNN; and a senior political producer at ABC News Digital Media Group.
Carolina A. Miranda ’93 is a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, where she covers culture, visual art, architecture and film and examines issues of politics, gender and race. She is a regular contributor to KCRW’s “Press Play” and was a winner of the 2017 Rabkin Prize in Visual Arts Journalism. Along with three other alumnae, Miranda will receive the Smith College Medal at Rally Day, in recognition of her contributions to her community, the college recently announced.
Kate O’Brian ’80 is the founder and CEO of the media consulting group O’ Media Strategies. O’Brian, who previously served as president of the award-winning Al Jazeera-America and before that had a long career at ABC, now works with a range of organizations including The Washington Post, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the United Nations and the Voice of America.
Hauser, a longtime journalist, is the author of two award-winning nonfiction books, “Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman” and “The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens.”
Mary Irwin, who manages operations for the Friends of the Smith College Libraries, explained why the group chose media literacy as a theme for a panel. “Librarians spend a lot of time teaching information literacy — training students to become savvy researchers,” she said. “How people get their news is often based on convenience or habit, and we tend to trust the sources we know.
“With an election year fast approaching, we decided to focus on how media organizations function today: how news is sourced, reported and produced in a time of great technological change that has transformed the industry,” Irwin continued. “We invited journalists from a range of media backgrounds to get their perspectives and to hear about their experiences and the challenges they face.”
The event is free and open to the public.