September 2010 International Television Journalist Dave Marash to Speak at NUI Galway

The Religion of Journalism: Our God is Reality – What's There? The MA in Journalism Programme at NUI Galway has announced that international television journalist, Dave Marash will give the first lecture as part of the 2010/11 Guest Speaker Programme. The title of the lecture is "The Religion of Journalism: Our God is Reality – What's There?" and will take place on Tuesday, 21 September at 12 pm in the Siobhán McKenna Theatre in the Arts Millennium Building. The event is free and open to the public. Dave Marash is expected to draw on his wealth of experience as an American television journalist to discuss the nature and best practices of journalism and the role the industry plays in a democratic society as well as a range of other topics. Bernadette O'Sullivan, Director of the MA in Journalism at NUI Galway, says: "The Guest Speaker programme is an integral part of the MA course content. It gives students the opportunity to engage with, and exchange ideas with working journalists and editors. To kick start with someone of Dave Marash's calibre and range of experience, at a time when so many media changes and challenges are evolving in front of our eyes, is exciting, not just for the journalism students at NUI Galway but also for those interested in media, politics and critical thinking". For over sixteen years, Dave worked at ABC News on Nightline, a highly-influential nightly current affairs programme. In his time there, he covered major stories that took him to such places as the Former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Honduras and Northern Ireland. Before Nightline, he spent more than a decade in local news and sports, and worked at ABC's 20/20 and CBS Radio. The broadcaster won an Overseas Press Club Award for his 1972 radio reports on the Munich Olympic Games terrorist attack, and also received an Emmy Award for his Nightline coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing and for his coverage of the explosion of TWA Flight 800. Dave Marash attracted considerable attention when he joined Al Jazeera English (AJE) to become the network's Washington DC anchor. This was a significant move for such a high profile journalist. Al Jazeera English is a 24-hour English-language news and current affairs channel, headquartered in the Middle East, that reports from the region and the developing world back to the Western World, and from the southern to the northern hemisphere. Due to various perceptions of the channel's output, AJE has no major cable or satellite distribution deal in the United States but it is available on the Web. The event is sponsored by the NUI Galway campus company www.socialmedia.net, a web-based publisher, focusing on developments in technology, innovation, and social media. Its mission is to cover the next phase of the Web, making it accessible to both technical and non-technical readers alike by providing, a positive view of technological developments in the online world, a place where interested parties can contribute to articles, and a place to find some useful and emerging ideas in the area of the Web. -Ends-