News & Media

Brokaw will report on the Republican National Convention from Houston along with Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil as a joint effort by NBC and PBS.

Journalist Andres Oppenheimer is the senior foreign correspondent for The Miami Herald. He spent more than five months in Cuba researching his new book, "Castro's Final Hour," which looks into how the country has been affected by the collapse of Soviet Union, which had provided ample material support to Castro's government.

Since 1975, Rideau has been the editor-in-chief of "The Angolite," the prison newsmagazine of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where he's serving a life sentence for murder. An eighth-grade dropout, he was convicted of murder in 1961 and spent eleven years on death row at Angola, where he taught himself to write. "The Angolite" has highlighted issues of execution and prison rape. For his writing, Rideau won the Sidney Hillman Award in 1981, the George Polk award in 1980, and the Robert F.

Record Producer Ernst Jorgensen. He's just put together a 5-CD box set of Elvis recordings from the 1950s, called "Elvis: The King of Rock 'n' Roll--The Complete '50's Masters." It includes several alternate takes, early demos, and some previously unreleased tracks.

A concert and interview with producer/performer/songwriter T. Bone Burnett. Rolling Stone once called him "the best songwriter in America." He's produced records for Elvis Costello, John Hiatt, Marshall Crenshaw, and others. His new album is called "The Criminal Under My Own Hat."

Journalist Frederick Kempe is a foreign correspondent and Berlin Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal. He spent five weeks traveling thru Sibera and has written an account of it in, "Siberian Odyssey." In many areas, Kempe was the first American there. He visited a nomadic tribe of reindeer herders, a former Gulag site, and the site of a Stalinist mass grave, talking to survivors of the former, and children of victims from the later. Kempe made the trip shortly before the August 1991 coup that ushered out the Communist Party.

TV critic David Bianculli takes a look at the proliferation of coverage of the Democratic National Convention and the election more broadly.

John Powers, who's been a film critic for Fresh Air, is covering the Democratic National Convention this week for the L.A. Weekly. He tells Terry about what he's seen on the floor so far.

Drakulic's recent book is called "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed." Now we'll talk to her about living in Zagreb, the capitol of Croatia. Refugees from nearby Sarajevo are flowing into the city from their civil war-torn country.

Phelps is the Supreme Court reporter who broke the Anita Hill story (along with NPR's Nina Totenberg) in New York Newsday. He's co-written an account of the Clarence Thomas hearings, called "Capitol Games," which looks at how the press failed to see the whole story of now-Justice Thomas, including just how conservative he really is.

The publishing world was stunned yesterday by the announcement that Tina Brown, editor of Vanity Fair, is to be the new editor of "The New Yorker," replacing Robert A. Gottlieb, who resigned over philosophical differences with the magazine's publisher. Ms. Brown has promised not to change the magazine in ways that many staffers fear. Terry talks to writer John Updike and media critic Geoffrey Stokes about the change.

Journalist Leroy Aarons and President of the newly formed National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association. Aarons is founder of the group which was organized to deal with issues in the media involving gays and lesbians, to counter the homophobia often found in the mass media, and to promote fair and ethical treatment of gay and lesbian journalists who often fear exposure. The group is holding its first conference this week in San Francisco. Aarons is former editor, national correspondent, and bureau chief for The Washington Post and former executive editor for The Oakland Tribune.

Publisher and Editor of "Le Devoir," Lise Bissonnette. The paper is the province's most influential French-language newspaper. (Richler says in his book that the paper has told readers to avoid Jewish shopkeepers who have "cheating and corruption in their bloodstream.")

Concert and interview with composer Anthony Davis and performers from his new opera, "Tania," -- Soprano Cynthia Aaronson, bass/baritone Mark Doss, and pianist Alan Johnson. Davis's opera premiered this week at the American Music Theatre Festival in Philadelphia. "Tania," is loosely based on the Patty Hearst story.

Author Robert Schmuhl, Professor and Director of the Program on Ethics and Media at the University of Notre Dame. His new book is "Statecraft and Stagecraft: American Political Life in the Age of Personality." (published by Notre Dame Press). He'll talk with Terry about the personalities in this year's election.

Journalist Lawrence Weschler. He's a staff writer for the New Yorker and has been covering Eastern Europe for the past decade. Terry talks with Weschler about leadership in Czechoslovakia, where parliamentary elections were just held.

Benjamin Cheever is the son of the late John Cheever. Ben is also a writer, and he grew up in the shadow of his father's fame. He's just written his first novel, for which he says he finally found his own voice, separate from his father's. "The Plagiarist" (Atheneum) is loosely based on Ben's life, and the time he spent working at "Reader's Digest" magazine. Ben was also the editor of "The Letters of John Cheever," published in 1988.

Journalist and lawyer Wendy Kaminer (cam-AH-ner). Her new book, I'm Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional, is a critical look at the recovery and self-help movement. Kaminer believes that the movement tends to trivialize suffering by refusing to distinguish among levels of suffering or victimization (for instance, one recovery expert suggests that childhood is a holocaust.) Kaminer also considers the political implications for democracy if people view themselves as victims. (by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company).

Southeast Asia Correspondent for The New York Times, Philip Shenon (SHE-none). He's been following the protests between Thai troups and pro-democracy protestors in Bangkok, Thialand. The protestors: students, professionals, and workers have been demanding that the Prime Minister Suchinda Kraprayoon step down. Suchinda, a former military leader, led a coup last year against the democratic Government and took power in April as an unelected Prime Minister. Many people have died in the protests. SHENON will update us on the situation. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Stan Sesser, a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, just wrote a lengthy article called "Report From Cambodia." A country that's been dirt poor for several decades is experiencing a new prosperity since the United Nations peace agreement was signed last October. Oddly, the agreement calls for a sharing of power with the Khmer Rouge, an action Sesser equates with allowing the Nazis back into power in post war Germany. (The article is in the May 18, 1992 issue of The New Yorker.)