Ralph Blumenthal, Houston bureau chief for “The New York Times,” will discuss “Blood Sport: Texas Politics and the Governor’s Race as seen by The New York Times” today.
The discussion, sponsored by the Student Government Association, the American Democracy Project, The New York Times Knowledge Network, and the Collegiate Readership Program, will be held at 1 p.m. in the Lowman Student Center Theater.
“The purpose of the event is two-fold,” said SGA president Christopher Whitaker. “One is to increase student awareness of the issues in this election, and the second is to give students an opportunity to discuss politics in Texas.
“We hope this will give students a more informed vote and increase interest in voting,” he said.
A prize-winning reporter who has covered many of the leading stories of the last generation, Blumenthal has reported overseas from former West Germany, South Vietnam, Cambodia, Pakistan, Brazil and the Caribbean, and at home from Washington, New York and many other cities around the nation.
He headed the reporting team covering the World Trade Center terrorist attack in 1993, coverage that won “The Times” a Pulitzer Prize in 1994.
In addition, Blumenthal co-authored a series of articles in 1994 on the fatal crashes of US Air, which prompted new safety procedures, that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won the Worth Bingham prize for investigative reporting.
After Sept. 11, 2001, he briefly rejoined the investigative team covering terrorism.
Blumenthal is scheduled to speak for approximately 30 minutes and then field questions for another 30 minutes.
For more information, call the SGA at 936.294.1938 or visit http://www.shsu.edu/~org_sga/.