Tag: Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy

Margaret Brennan, a 2002 University graduate and moderator of CBS’s Face the Nation, spoke to a crowd of more than 170 students, faculty and community members in Garrett Hall Wednesday evening as a part of the Batten School and the Center for Politics’ “Democracy in Perilous Times” series. Brennan talked about her career as a journalist and her experiences prominently covering the White House and hosting a broadcast news program during the Trump administration. After studying foreign affairs, Middle Eastern studies, and Arabic while at the University, Brennan began working for CNBC covering Wall Street, later moving to Bloomberg Television to continue her financial reporting as an anchor. “And Wall Street is shorthand for how the world functions often … so I brought that and I brought my background covering national security policy, and those are things that are often on my front burner and headlines that catch my attention.” In her talk, Brennan noted the fast-paced nature of a television newsroom and explained the process of booking political figures for the Face the Nation broadcast, which airs Sunday mornings. “We try to make Face the Nation look like the nation,” Brennan said. “We try to incorporate more diversity of thought and perspective … People ask you these big picture questions of what things have changed, and I think that the storytellers have also changed. I think perspectives need to be more informed as well. You can’t just have the same point of view reflected and repeated all the time.” When an audience member asked what a news organization’s responsibility is in response to claims of fake news, Brennan described the dual responsibility of news outlets to provide accurate, comprehensive coverage and of media consumers to carefully choose which sources to watch, listen to and read. Read the paper and watch the news. And then I was looking at this idea of how to explain to people the roots of why things happen, the context for why things happen.