‘Frontline’ executive producer to speak

The executive producer of public broadcasting’s “Frontline,” America’s only regularly scheduled public affairs documentary program, will speak Thursday, Nov. 7.

David Fanning will address “The Abandonment of Television” in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication Ralph O. Nafziger Lecture for 2002. He will begin his talk at 4 p.m. in the Memorial Union’s Fredric March Play Circle. A reception will follow the lecture (check Today in the Union for exact room location). No tickets are required and the lecture is free and open to the public.

“David Fanning is one of the most important figures in American documentary,” says Lewis A. Friedland, director of the UW–Madison Center for Communication and Democracy and professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “The main question he is asking – has American television abandoned serious reporting? – affects anyone who votes, goes to school, has a job or worries about war; in short, anyone who cares about American democracy.”

Fanning has been executive producer of “Frontline” since it went on the air in 1983. “For 20 years now, ‘Frontline’ has upheld and expanded the highest standards of investigative reporting American television,” Friedland says. The program has been recognized twice (1996 and 1990) with the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton Award. In addition, the series has been awarded 15 other duPont-Columbia Awards, 28 Emmys, 10 Peabody Awards, two George Polk Awards and five Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards.

Fanning began his own career chronicling the interplay between race and religion in his native South Africa. He came to the United States in 1973, and began working for public broadcasting in California. He later started the documentary series “World” at WGBH, Boston public television. In addition to “Frontline,” Fanning also created the PBS series “Adventure,” which ran from 1987-1992.

For more information, contact Friedland at (608) 263-7853, lfriedla@facstaff.wisc.edu.