Why It Matters: Journalism and Democracy
Where are you getting your news? Who do you trust to provide it? Join Nevada Humanities as we welcome journalists Masha Gessen and Jon Ralston in conversation about the state of journalism in the United States and abroad, current threats to a free press, and threats to democracy writ large. The conversation is moderated by Caesar Andrews, Professor and Leonard Distinguished Chair in Media Ethics and Writing at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. This event was live streamed on Tuesday, May 11, 2021 at 12 pm PDT.
Masha Gessen is a journalist and bestselling author of the National Book Award-winning The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (2017). They have covered political subjects from Russia, autocracy, L.G.B.T. rights, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump, among others, and their understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. Other books include: The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (2012), and their most recent book, Surviving Autocracy (2020) is a bracing overview of the calamitous trajectory of American democracy under the Trump administration. “When Gessen speaks about autocracy, you listen” (The New York Times Book Review). A regular contributor to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, and Slate, among other publications, they are a staff writer at The New Yorker and the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Carnegie Fellowship. Gessen teaches at Bard College and lives in New York City.
Jon Ralston has been covering politics in Nevada for more than 30 years. His blog, Ralston Reports, was founded in 2012 and now lives on The Nevada Independent website. Ralston wrote for the Las Vegas Review-Journal for 15 years, the last seven as a freelance columnist. In 1999, Greenspun Media Group purchased his political newsletter, The Ralston Report, and hired him as a columnist for the Las Vegas Sun where his byline appeared until September 2012. He was also a columnist for the Reno Gazette-Journal from January 2015 until November 2016, when he left to start The Nevada Independent. Ralston is originally from Buffalo, New York.
Caesar Andrews is a professor in the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he occupies the Leonard Distinguished Chair in Media Ethics and Writing. He serves on boards for two nonprofits: Journal-isms, a chronicler of diversity news in the media industry; and Fatal Encounters, a database for tracking police shootings of civilians. He previously worked as an editor for the Gannett Co. at newsrooms in Florida, Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan.
This program is produced by Nevada Humanities and funded by the “Why It Matters: Civic and Electoral Participation” initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
