A NYS Writers Institute event

The issues are daunting. Attacks on truth, free speech, a free press, and the First Amendment. A proliferation of propaganda. Misinformation, hacks, deep fakes, and conspiracy theories. Ongoing threats to our democracy that erupted in the January 6 insurrection.

The NYS Writers Institute’s 4th edition of “Telling the Truth,” featuring notable journalists, authors, and newsmakers, will present a pair of discussions on these issues -- "Truth in Media" at 5:30 and "Politics and Disinformation" at 7 p.m. – on Friday, October 28, at Page Hall on the University at Albany Downtown Campus, 135 Western Avenue, Albany NY 12203. The event is free and open to the public.

Panel 1: Truth in Media, 5:30 p.m. Friday, October 28

Moderator: Paul Grondahl, NYS Writers Institute Director. An award-winning reporter for the Albany Times Union for more than 30 years, he recently collaborated on H. Carl McCall’s memoir Truly Blessed and Highly Favored. His previous books include Mayor Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma, and I Rose Like a Rocket: The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt.

Brian Stelter, the former chief media correspondent for CNN Worldwide and anchor of "Reliable Sources," a weekly examination of the world’s top media stories, from 2013 until earlier this year.

He is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth (2020). Rachel Maddow called it, “A Rosetta Stone for stuff about this presidency that doesn’t otherwise make sense to normal humans.”

His first book, Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV, inspired the Apple TV+ drama "The Morning Show." Stelter is also the executive producer of the 2020 HBO documentary "After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News."

Nandini Jammi is a leading truth-in-broadcasting activist and founder of Check My Ads and Sleeping Giants— advertising watchdog organizations that are committed to making hate and bigotry unprofitable in American media. She has been behind some of the most high-profile social media campaigns in the U.S. since 2016, including efforts to defund far-right website Breitbart News, and movements to persuade advertisers to abandon various Fox News programs such as The O’Reilly Factor and Tucker Carlson Tonight.

Panel 2: Politics and Disinformation, 7 p.m. Friday, October 28

Moderator: Rosemary Armao, public affairs commenter on WAMC Northeast Public Radio in Albany, and an adjunct professor of journalism at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Devlin Barrett, who grew up in Troy, NY, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter who covers the FBI and Department of Justice. His new book is October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election (2020), a dark true-life thriller about the FBI’s investigation into the use of a private email server by Hillary Clinton’s staff during the 2016 election. Barrett was part of a Washington Post team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for National Reporting, for coverage of Russian interference in the US election. In 2017, he was a co-finalist, together with colleagues at the Wall Street Journal, for two different Pulitzers— Feature Writing and International Reporting.

Jonathan Lemire, is the host of MSNBC’s morning news show, "Way Too Early," and the White House bureau chief of Politico. His 2022 New York Times bestseller is The Big Lie: Election Chaos, Political Opportunism, and the State of American Politics After 2020. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly said, “A trenchant analysis… This dispatch on the state of American politics hits the bull’s-eye.”

Prior to joining Politico, Lemire served as White House reporter for The Associated Press during the Trump and Biden administrations. He also covered Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign, including the candidate’s June 2015 Trump Tower campaign kickoff, and nearly 100 rallies in 2016.

More at https://www.nyswritersinstitute.org/tellingthetruth2022

Major support and funding for the Telling the Truth Symposium is provided by The Professor Ben-Ami Lipetz NYSWI Fund.