We had even more exciting guest speakers for the students to meet today.
Firstly Nick Hutchison spoke to the students about William Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre. Nick is a director, actor, and lecturer, who has worked for the BBC, ITV, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and Shakespeare’s Globe. He has directed many Shakespeare plays throughout the UK and the US and, as an established actor, he has played parts in About A Boy with Hugh Grant, Restoration with Robert Downey Jr, Miss Potter with Renee Zellwegger, and Golden Years with Ricky Gervais.
Then this evening we were joined by Jennifer Ludden and and Gerry Holmes for a talk their careers in journalism. Jennifer is a correspondent on NPR’s National Desk. She covers a range of stories on family life and social issues. She spent six years as a foreign reporter for NPR covering the Middle East, Europe, and West and Central Africa. She followed the collapse of the decade-long Oslo peace process, shared in two awards (Overseas Press Club and Society of Professional Journalists) for NPR’s coverage of the Kosovo war in 1999, and won the Robert F. Kennedy award for her coverage of the overthrow of Mobutu Sese Seko in the Democratic Republic of Congo. When not navigating war zones, Ludden reported on cultural trends, including the dying tradition of storytellers in Syria, the emergence of Persian pop music in Iran, and the rise of a new form of urban polygamy in Africa.
Gerry is Deputy Managing Editor for NPR News. He’s responsible for leading the daily news agenda for NPR News, working with the various radio and digital units that tell NPR stories on air and on-line.Mr. Holmes was the Senior Supervising Producer for NPR’s news magazine, All Things Considered for five years. In that role, he was planning and drafting the 2 hour program in coordination with NPR’s Desks. Mr. Holmes was ABC News’ Middle East Bureau Chief/ lead producer based in Jerusalem for 3 years. In that role he managed a staff made up of Israelis and Palestinians during the region’s Second Intifada in the late 1990’s and traveled across the region – from Egypt to Iran – reporting on culture, politics and people.
The students were able to listen to their stories about the profession and then ask some of their own questions.
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