Propaganda at the Paley Center LA - Speakers

Panelists:
Eli Attie:
Eli Attie is a writer, producer, and former political operative. He served as Vice President Al Gore's chief speechwriter from 1997 until Gore's concession of the 2000 election, and before that was a special assistant to President Bill Clinton. Attie is currently a writer and co-executive producer of Fox-TV's House. He previously worked as a writer on the NBC-TV series The West Wing for most of its run; according to the IMDb, he was credited or jointly credited as a writer of 21 episodes, and served as a producer and supervising producer in the show's later seasons. A number of that show's story lines came from Attie's own experiences working in politics and in the White House. Together with John Wells, Attie was nominated for Writers Guild and Humanitas awards for the episode "Election Day: Part 2," in which Santos wins the presidency. Attie is a seven-time Emmy nominee; he shared a 2002 Emmy Award for "The West Wing Documentary Special."

Bill Carrick
Bill Carrick is a strategic and media consultant for candidates and ballot initiatives in California and nationally. He founded Carrick Consulting, which specializes in the creation, production and placement of advertising for candidates, ballot initiatives and organizations. His clients have included Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Charles Schumer, State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, the No on Prop. 77 campaign, L.A. Mayors Dick Riordan and James Hahn, President Bill Clinton and both the Democratic congressional and senatorial campaign committees. A native of South Carolina, Carrick began his career in politics there working for local and statewide candidates, including Gov. Dick Riley. He went on to serve in Washington as Sen. Ted Kennedy's political director and as national manager for Richard Gephardt's presidential campaign before moving to California. Carrick has also worked as an on-air political analyst for ABC's "This Week," CNN, KABC-TV and NPR.

Steven Luckert
Steven Luckert is Curator of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s highly-acclaimed permanent exhibition, The Holocaust. In this capacity, he serves as the director of the exhibition, which encompasses three floors of the Museum’s building, displays thousands of individual artifacts, and features more than 70 audio-visual components. As part of his tasks, he selects artifacts, writes text, and handles public and media inquiries concerning the exhibition.
In addition, Dr. Luckert has curated or co-curated seven special exhibitions at the Museum:
- Father Jacques (1997)
- Kristallnacht: the November 1938 Pogroms (1998)
- The Voyage of the St. Louis (1999)
- Life Reborn: Jewish Displaced Persons, 1945-1951 (2000)
- The Art and Politics of Arthur Szyk. (2001)
- Life in Shadows: Hidden Children and the Holocaust (2003)
- State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda (2009)

He is the author of two companion volumes to the exhibitions, The Art and Politics of Arthur Szyk, and State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda (with Susan Bachrach). Prior to coming to the Museum, Dr. Luckert taught European history at several campuses of the State University of New York and at George Mason University.  In 1993, he received his Ph.D. in modern European history from Binghamton University.  

Daniel Schnur:
Daniel Schnur is the Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. He has served as Chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, and is a visiting instructor at the University of California, Berkeley. He has also been a Republican political strategist best known for his work as Senator John McCain's Communications Director in his 2000 presidential primary campaign against George W. Bush. Schnur started work in politics as a media assistant for the Ronald Reagan / George H. W. Bush campaign for the election of 1984. He later was the spokesman for the George H. W. Bush / Dan Quayle campaign of 1988, before he moved to California to work as the Communications Director of the California Republican Party. He joined Governor Pete Wilson's staff in 1990 as Press Secretary and Communications Director. After Wilson's successful 1994 re-election campaign, Schnur moved into education, teaching campaign politics at University of California, Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies. He then went to work for McCain's campaign, where he worked as the campaign's chief media spokesperson and oversaw the communications operation. Following McCain's withdrawal from the 2000 race, Schnur returned to UC Berkeley and also began teaching political communication at the University of Southern California. Dan Schnur currently teaches the undergraduate course "Campaign Strategy: Media and Message" at the University of California, Berkeley.In addition to teaching courses on campaign communication and strategy at both USC and UC Berkeley, Schnur is a founder and principal at Command-Focus, a Sacramento-based political strategy and communications firm with offices both in Sacramento and Los Angeles. Schnur joined Edelman public relations in December 2007 as executive vice president and director to lead its California Public Affairs practice. He can also be found as a regular political commentator on Fleischman's "FlashReport" Blog--a staple in the daily news diet of conservatives and moderates in the California political scene. Schnur also writes for the New York Times blog "Campaign Stops" and is currently the Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California.

Moderator: Renee Hobbs
Renee Hobbs is Professor and Founding Director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island, a new communication school that brings together the departments and programs in Journalism, Film/Media, Communication Studies, Public Relations, Writing & Rhetoric and a graduate program in Library and Information Science. Professor Hobbs is one of the nation's leading authorities on media literacy education. Through community and global service and as a researcher, teacher, advocate and media professional, Hobbs has worked to advance the quality of digital and media literacy education in the United States and around the world. She founded the Media Education Lab, whose mission is to improve the quality of media literacy education through research and community service. In the early 1990s, she created the first national teacher education program in media literacy, the Harvard Institute on Media Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has published dozens of articles in scholarly journals in three fields: communication, education and health. She is the founding co-editor of the Journal for Media Literacy Education, an open-access peer reviewed journal. Her current work with European colleague Dr. Silke Grafe of Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany examines teacher motivations for integrating digital tools and media literacy concepts into the curriculum. She has written several books, among them, Digital and Media Literacy: Connecting Culture and Classroom, Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning, Reading the Media: Media Literacy in High School English, and co-authored Elements of Language. Renee Hobbs works to increase visibility for digital and media literacy at the national level. In 2012, she serves as a Fellow for the American Library Association Office of Information Technology Policy. As a field-builder, she helped found the Partnership for Media Education, which evolved into the National Association for Media Literacy Education. She is also active in helping educators understand their rights and responsibilities when using mass media, popular culture and digital media in education. Her white paper, Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action offers a blueprint of pragmatic actions to bring these competencies to all Americans. It was released in Washington D.C. in November, 2010 and published by the Aspen Institute and the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. Renee Hobbs is a multimedia producer and has developed numerous award-winning resources for K-12 students and educators that help develop digital and media literacy competencies. Renee Hobbs received an Ed.D in Human Development from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, an M.A. in Communication from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. with a double major in English Literature and Film/Video Studies from the University of Michigan.