Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum

Protecting a Free Press while Journalism is in Turmoil
Thursday, March 26, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
at the Gerald R. Ford Museum

Press release for this event here.

GIL KLEIN
Moderator

Gil Klein is director of the National Press Club's Centennial Forums. For 22 years he was a national correspondent with the Media General News Service, writing for 25 newspapers in the Southeast including The Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Tampa Tribune and The Winston-Salem Journal. He was National Press Club president in 1994 and wrote the Club's centennial history, Reliable Sources: 100 Years at the National Press Club.

MEEGAN HOLLAND
Online Editor, The Grand Rapids Press

Meegan Holland is online editor for MLive.com at The Grand Rapids Press. Previously she was editor and chief of Booth News Service in Lansing, Mich. The service provided politics, sports, travel and other stories of statewide interest to the eight Booth Newspapers including The Grand Rapids Press, Flint Journal, Ann Arbor News and Kalamazoo Gazette.

Holland has lived and worked all over Michigan. Born and raised in Cadillac, she received her BA at Kalamazoo College and has worked at newspapers in Greenville (Mich.), Port Huron and Grand Rapids. She served time at a newspaper in Rockford, Ill., but the unrelenting sunshine drove her back to her beloved Michigan.

TIM GERAGHTY
Vice President and News Director, WZZM-13

Tim Geraghty became the News Director at WZZM 13, Gannett’s ABC affiliate in the Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo/Battle Creek Michigan market in August 2004. He became a Vice-President in December, 2007.

Prior to joining Gannett, Geraghty was Vice-President, News at WTVJ in South Florida for the past 4 ½ years. While there, the newsroom won four regional Edward R. Murrow Awards and won late news in A25-54 every major rating book. Geraghty is a graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. He is current chairman of the ABC Affiliate News Director Advisory Board.

PAUL SCHUTT
Partner and Group Publisher, Issue Media Group

Paul Schutt is the co-founder of Issue Media Group, a Detroit based media company that has created online magazines such as Model D and metromode in Detroit, PopCity in Pittsburgh, Rapid Growth in Grand Rapids, Capital Gains in Lansing, Concentrate in Ann Arbor and Soapbox in Cincinnati. IMG publications focus on growth, investment and remarkable people leading communities into the new economy. Mr. Schutt also co-founded Cleveland based, Easy2 Technologies in 1999 that creates rich media retail solutions for products and retailers such as Lowes, Amazon and others. Paul serves on many public and private sector advisory boards.

JANE BRIGGS-BUNTING
Director of the Michigan State Journalism Board

Jane Briggs-Bunting is Director of the Michigan State University School of Journalism. A professor of journalism, she joined the MSU faculty in August 2003 after 24 years in journalism education at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. She was named Journalist of the Year in 1991 by the Detroit Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. In April 2003, she was inducted into the prestigious Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame in part because of her advocacy for the legal rights of the college press. In November 2006, she was honored as a Friend of Scholastic Journalism by the Journalism Education Association for her work with student media. She is also a media attorney, the author of three journalism textbooks and three children’s books.