Bob Schieffer, Tim Russert and other national media discuss politics

Fort Worth, TX

3/16/2007

NBC News' Tim Russert, New York Times editor Bill Keller, ABC News legal correspondent and best-selling author Jan Crawford Greenburg, and Earl G. Graves Sr., founder and publisher of Black Enterprise Magazine headlined this year's Schieffer Symposium, Tuesday March 27 at 6:30 p.m. in TCU's Ed Landreth Auditorium. The event was co-sponsored by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The symposium titled “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of the News: The Media's Role in a Democracy,” was hosted by 1959 TCU alumnus, Bob Schieffer, CBS News' chief Washington correspondent.

“We have been fortunate to have some of the top figures in journalism participate in these sessions,” Schieffer said, “but this may be our best line-up yet and with an election coming, the war in Iraq, and a Supreme Court with two new justices, there will be no shortage of topics for our panel to discuss.”

Russert is Washington Bureau chief for NBC News and moderator of Meet the Press. Keller was an award-winning writer before becoming the top editor at the New York Times. Greenburg was a longtime legal correspondent at the Chicago Tribune before joining ABC News last year. Her new book on the Supreme Court, Supreme Conflict, became a New York Times best seller this month. Graves is one of the nation's most successful African-American businessmen and founded Black Enterprise Magazine.

Schieffer moderated the discussion and then allowed questions from the audience. The Schieffer Symposium began three years ago when TCU named its journalism department in Schieffer's honor. The symposia have become one of the most popular campus events. Both of the previous sessions were sellouts. Past panelists include Tom Brokaw, former NBC Nightly News anchor; Tom Friedman, columnist for the New York Times; Bob Woodward, assistant managing editor of The Washington Post; Jim Lehrer, host of PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; Jill Abramson, managing editor of the New York Times; Len Downie, executive editor of The Washington Post; Larry Kramer, founder of Marketwatch.com and president of CBS Digital Media; and Judy Woodruff, former anchor of CNN's Inside Politics and correspondent for PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.