NPR s Ashbrook to Speak June 24

A Life in the News Business and American Journalism Now will be the topic of a presentation by National Public Radio (NPR) host and Bloomington native Tom Ashbrook on Friday, June 24, at 9:30 a.m. at Illinois State University's Alumni Center, 1101 N. Main in Normal.  The event is free and open to the public but advance reservations are requested.  Call (309) 438-2160 by June 22 to reserve seats.

Ashbrook, host of NPR's On Point, will share his stories and insights of the evolving American press.  He spent a decade as a foreign correspondent in India, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. His first newspaper job was at the South China Morning Post. During the late 1980s, Ashbrook became a correspondent for The Boston Globe covering the refugee exodus from Vietnam, the post-Mao opening of China and turmoil and shifting cultural and economic trends in the United States and around the world. He served as deputy managing editor of The Globe and directed coverage of the first Gulf War and the end of the Cold War. He received the Livingston Prize for National Reporting and was a 1996 fellow at Harvard's Nieman Foundation. He is the author of The Leap: A Memoir of Love and Madness in the Internet Gold Rush.

Ashbrook's presentation is the first annual Charles W. Bolen Memorial Lecture sponsored by Senior Professionals of Illinois State University.