Speaker series to discuss media’s effect on elections
SEASIDE >> The CSU Monterey Bay 2020 President’s Speaker Series kicks off Wednesday with a panel discussion about how media changes are influencing elections.
The panelists are Matt Gorman, a former campaign adv iser to Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush as well as the VP of Targeted Victory; Amanda Renteria, CEO of Code for America and a former national political director for former Secretary of State Hillar y Clinton; Paulette Aniskoff, the former director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; Lynda Tran, a former campaign adviser to four presidential candidates and founding partner of 270 Strategies; and Mike Madrid, a founder of The Lincoln Project and the former political director of the California Republican Party.
Zach Friend, a political communications expert and former adviser to Barack Obama and John Kerry who serves on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, will moderate the discussion titled “Truth, Fiction and Alternative Facts.”
“The panel is so distinguished, a lot of it will be just allowing them to really interplay,” Friend said of the event.
Gorman said he’s really excited to join his fellow speakers.
“It’s hard to believe that the 2020 election is almost over, but it’s important to try and put this political year in context,” he said.
Tran said she is really looking forward to the bipartisan discussion with a group of strategists who have all had front row seats to some of the biggest moments in our nation’s recent history.
“While we come to this conversation from opposite sides of the aisle, I’m expecting to hear a good deal of shared experiences and perspectives — and I’m looking forward to learning from each other,” she said.
Friend said he plans on framing the discussion around how the media has so substantively changed from when Walter Cronkite would be reading the news to large parts of the country to now when algorithms predict what kind of news social media users would like to see.
“The question for the panel and the purpose of this discussion is, ‘ How is this siloing of information, or how is this inability to separate fact from fiction directly shaping democracy and the presidential election — both the current one and future elections,’ ” Friend said.
In a press relea se, CSUMB President Eduardo M. Ochoa said the panel of experts will help audiences understand the landscape and the choices in front of them
“This is going to be a momentous and important election,” he said.
The panel event takes place live on Zoom from 3: 30- 5 p. m. Wednesday and will be broadcast on Fa c ebook . c om/ C SUMB and is free to attend. Go to csumb. edu/president for more information and to RSVP.
“The question for the panel and the purpose of this discussion is, ‘How is this siloing of information, or how is this inability to separate fact from fiction directly shaping democracy and the presidential election — both the current one and future elections.’” — Zach Friend, political communications expert