Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Lowell Bergman will give a talk and share a Q&A session on Wednesday, Sept. 18, at The Raven Performing Arts Theater in Healdsburg. His appearance is being sponsored by Sonoma West Publishers (SWP) and Northern California Public Media (KRCB.)
The public is invited to attend and general admission is $10. All SWP newspaper subscribers will be admitted free. (This includes subscribers to Sonoma West Times & News, The Healdsburg Tribune, The Windsor Times and The Cloverdale Reveille.)
“These are some of the most challenging times ever for journalism and newspapers,” said SWP Publisher Rollie Atkinson. “As journalists, we can no longer be silent in defense of our profession and the importance of local newspapers as democracy-empowering institutions. We are excited to present Lowell to our community and readers. He is one the foremost voices in our profession and he has some very “no nonsense” views about what’s at stake and what needs to be done to defend the truth and keep all governments honest.”
There will be a V.I.P. reception for SWP’s community investors and invited major donors of NorCal Media at 7 p.m. Bergman’s public talk will begin at 8 p.m. (Doors will open at 7:30 p.m.) Tickets for the general public will be available at the door only. Seating is open, and The Raven snack bar will be open.
Bergman is the Emeritus Reva & David Logan Professor of Investigative Reporting at UC Berkeley, where he founded the first and largest graduate program in investigative reporting in the nation, the Center for Investigative Reporting in 1977. He spent over four decades working for major national news outlets, including the New York Times and Rolling Stone, and taught at Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism for 28 years.
His “60 Minutes” investigation of the tobacco industry was dramatized in 1999 in the Academy Award-nominated feature film “The Insider.” (He was portrayed by actor Al Pacino.)
In 2004, while at the New York Times, he received journalism’s highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for his work with David Barstow and two Berkeley graduate students on “A Dangerous Business.”
