News Release

Poverty center to feature early November panel discussions
on media’s depiction of poverty, ‘Katrina’s Lessons’

CHAPEL HILL – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law’s Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity will bring nationally renowned experts to campus on Thursday (Nov. 3) and Nov. 9 to discuss, among other topics, what Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath has demonstrated about poverty in America.

"How the Media Portray Poverty" will be from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Paul Green Theatre within the Center for Dramatic Art. "Katrina’s Lessons: Moving Forward in the Fight Against Poverty" will be from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Nov. 9 at room 111 of Carroll Hall.

Both panel discussions are free to the public. John Edwards, the former U.S. senator and vice presidential candidate who directs UNC’s poverty center, will moderate both discussions.

The Thursday event will convene a panel of nationally renowned journalists to discuss the historical depiction of poverty in the media, trends and how Hurricane Katrina has affected the media’s portrayal of this issue.

The following journalists are scheduled to participate in the panel:

• Katherine Boo, a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and a New America Senior Fellow. As a senior fellow, Boo is writing about how changing economies in the United States and beyond have altered the infrastructure of opportunity for the aspiration-rich working poor. She has received a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, among other honors, for her investigative reporting.
• David Brooks, a columnist for The New York Times and commentator on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Brooks has written "Bobos in Paradise: the New Upper Class and How They Got There" and "On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (and Always Have) in the Future Tense."
• Jason DeParle, a senior writer at The New York Times and a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine. DeParle received a George Polk Award in 1999 for his reporting on the welfare system and has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist twice. In his book "American Dream," DeParle followed three women in one extended family as they dealt with effects of 1996’s welfare reform policies.
• Sam Fulwood III, a metro columnist for The Cleveland Plain Dealer and journalism graduate of UNC. Fulwood wrote a 1996 memoir, "Waking from the Dream: My Life in the Black Middle Class" and covered apartheid South Africa for The Baltimore Sun. He also has reported for The Charlotte Observer.
• David Wessel, deputy Washington bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal and weekly "Capital" columnist. He shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for a Boston Globe series on the persistence of racial discrimination in employment in Boston. With Bob Davis, Wessel is the co-author of "Prosperity: the Coming 20-Year Boom and What it Means to You."

The Nov. 9 panel discussion will be the culminating event in a daylong summit on poverty: "New Frontiers in Poverty Research and Policy." "Katrina’s Lessons" will convene a panel of experts to discuss lessons learned from Katrina and to propose concrete policy solutions to address those living in poverty.

The following experts are scheduled to participate in the panel:

• Dr. Jared Bernstein, the director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute. His areas of research include income and wage inequality, technology’s influence on wages and employment, low-wage labor markets and poverty, minimum wage analysis and international comparisons. Between 1995 and 1996, he was deputy chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, and he is the co-author of six editions of the book "State of Working America."
• Ray Boshara, director of the Asset Building Program at the New America Foundation. The program’s focus is on significantly broadening the ownership of assets nationwide and worldwide. Boshara has testified before
  the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee and has advised presidential administrations, as well as leaders in Europe and elsewhere, on asset-building policies.
• Anna Burger, the recently elected chairwoman of the Change to Win Coalition. This new alliance of major unions represents 6 million workers. She directs Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) political and field operations, including its 2004 election program. She also is the SEIU’s current secretary-treasurer. Burger began her career in 1972 as a Pennsylvania state caseworker and union activist in SEIU Local 668.
• Dr. William Julius Wilson, the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University professor at Harvard University and the director of the Joblessness and Urban Poverty Research Program at the Malcolm Weiner Centre for Social Policy at Harvard. In June 1996, he was selected for inclusion in Time magazine’s "America’s 25 Most Influential People." He received the 1998 National Medal of Science, the highest scientific honor nationwide.

For more information on the Thursday and Nov. 9 events, call (919) 843-8796 or e-mail povertycenter@unc.edu. Additional information on UNC’s Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity is at http://www.law.unc.edu/povertycenter.

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Poverty center contact: Laura Hogshead, (919) 843-9032 or laurah@email.unc.edu
News Services contacts: Lisa Katz, (919) 962-2093 or lisa_katz@unc.edu; Karen Moon, (919) 962-8595 or karen_moon@unc.edu; or Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415 or deborah_saine@unc.edu