MPR's Broadcast Journalist Series Welcomes Alix Spiegel on April 29 and David Plotz on May 15

Mar 14, 2013

Minnesota Public Radio Broadcast Journalist Series welcomes two esteemed journalists this spring for lively and topical discussions about their work--NPR correspondent Alix Spiegel on April 29 and Slate editor David Plotz on May 15.

Alix Spiegel
Monday, April 29, 7 p.m.

MPR News' Steven John will interview NPR correspondent Alix Spiegel. Spiegel works on the Science desk and covers psychology. Arriving at NPR in 2003, much of Spiegel's reporting has been on emotion mental health. She has reported on everything from the psychological impact of killing another person, to the emotional devastation of Katrina, to psycho-therapeutic approaches to transgender children. Over the course of her career in public radio, Spiegel has won awards including the George Foster Peabody Award, Livingston Award, and Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award. Spiegel's 2007 documentary revealing mental health issues and crime plaguing a Southern Mississippi FEMA trailer park housing Katrina victims was recognized with Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. Her radio documentary 81 Words, about the removal of homosexuality from psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is being turned into a film by HBO.

Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, Spiegel graduated from Oberlin College. She began her career in radio in 1995 as one of the founding producers of the public radio show This American Life. Spiegel left the show in 1999 to become a full time reporter. She has also written for The New Yorker and The New York Times.

David Plotz
Wednesday, May 15, 7 p.m.

The Daily Circuit's Eric Ringham will interview Slate editor David Plotz. Before joining the magazine in 1996, Plotz was a senior editor and staff writer for the Washington City Paper. Plotz has written for The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Rolling Stone, GQ, the New Republic, and the Washington Post.

He won the National Press Club's Hume Award for Political Reporting in 2000, was a National Magazine Award finalist, for a Harper's article about South Carolina's gambling industry and won an Online Journalism Award for a Slate piece on Enron. He also appears on the weekly Slate Political Gabfest podcast with John Dickerson and Emily Bazelon.

Slate is a United-States-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley. Since June 2008 Slate has been managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by the Washington Post Company to develop and manage web-only magazines.

Co-sponsored by the University of St. Thomas' College of Arts and Sciences and Communication and Journalism Department, the Broadcast Journalist Series, now in its 17th year, commissions renowned journalists for a 24-hour residency four times a year. They share insights on their craft and issues that affect the world.

WHERE: O'Shaughnessy Educational Center at the University of St. Thomas, 2115 Summit Ave., St. Paul

TICKETS: Admission is free but tickets are required.