Media and the 2008 Presidential Election Conference Rescheduled

The event will be held in the Krinovitz Recital Hall in Hawkins Hall starting at 10 a.m. and will feature a veteran political commentator and an executive TV producer who was also the founder of the "NBC Nightly News."

Alan Chartock, a veteran political commentator and author of "Me and Mario Cuomo: Conversations in Candor," will speak at 10 a.m. Chartock is president and CEO of WAMC Northeast Public Radio; the executive publisher and project director of the Legislative Gazette, New York's newspaper of state government; and the host of the weekly "Capitol Connection" series, heard on public radio stations around New York.

Winner of four Emmy Awards and a Peabody, Wallace Westfeldt will speak at 11 a.m. In addition to founding the "NBC Nightly News," he has been the executive producer of that program and many others, including the "Huntley-Brinkley Report," "NBC White Paper," "NBC Reports" and "ABC Special Reports." He also produced "NBC Magazine" and three monthly series for David Frost and wrote two books, "With All Deliberate Speed" and "The First Hundred Days of John F. Kennedy."

The conference will explore important issues that are extremely relevant during this political season, according to Dr. Ron Davis, conference organizer and a professor of journalism at the college.

"Political coverage of the 2008 presidential election raises critical questions about today's media," said Davis. "Has mainstream news coverage been right or left, or objective and informative? Have Twitter pages, instant messaging, blogs and text messages altered the nature of political coverage? The conference will look at media bloopers and triumphs and check the pulse of today's media."

This event is sponsored by the Center for Communication and Journalism at SUNY Plattsburgh and the New York Newspaper Publishers Association.