Ron Yates

Illinois Wesleyan Sponsors "Media and the War: A Panel Discussion"

May 21, 2003

Ron Yates, an award-winning foreign correspondent and currently professor and head of the department of journalism at the University of Illinois, will headline a panel that examines the media’s coverage of the war in Iraq on Tuesday, May 27, at 7:30 p.m. in Illinois Wesleyan University’s Hansen Student Center.

In addition to Yates, panelists will be Terry Greenberg, editor of The Pantagraph, Willis Kern, news director of WGLT-FM, Tari Renner, chair and professor of political science at Illinois Wesleyan, and Colleen Reynolds, news director of WJBC.

The program is sponsored by the Office of University Communications as part of Illinois Wesleyan’s May Term.

“How the media covered this war has been the subject of considerable conversation and sometimes controversy,” noted Jeff Hanna, vice president for public relations at Illinois Wesleyan. “As we continue to assess the results of the war, it is also useful to assess how all of us were served by the media. We look forward not only to the observations of the panelists but also to what we anticipate will be spirited participation of the audience.”

Yates will provide some firsthand background on the coverage of war. He was a foreign correspondent for The Chicago Tribune and arrived in Vietnam shortly before the fall of Saigon. A graduate of the University of Kansas, Yates won three Edward Scott Beck Awards for foreign reporters as well as an Asian Foundation Award for Excellence in Coverage of Asia and four Pulitzer Prize nominations.

Greenberg became editor of The Pantagraph in October 2003. He was previously editor of The Truth, a daily newspaper in Elkhart, Ind., and also held editing positions at several California newspapers. He received his bachelor’s degree from California State University at Northridge.

Kern has been news director at WGLT since 1997 and has worked in the newsroom at the station for 10 years. He previously was the evening show host at WJBC in Bloomington. Kern is a graduate of Illinois State University.

Renner, a member of the Illinois Wesleyan faculty since 1994, teaches courses in American politics, public policy and empirical research methods. He is a frequent media contributor, providing political commentary for television and newspapers.

Reynolds has been news director at WJBC for four and a half years and has worked at the station for 15 years. For reporting work, she has received more than a dozen awards from the Associated Press. Reynolds is a graduate of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.