Press Release

March 26, 2008
Contact: Robert Hicks (512) 936-4600, robert.hicks@thestoryoftexas.com

EVOLVING POWER OF THE EYEWITNESS EXPLORED
WITH AWARD-WINNING JOURNALISTS AT
THE BOB BULLOCK TEXAS STATE HISTORY MUSEUM

When: Sunday, March 30, 4 - 6 pm
Where: Texas Spirit Theater, The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum Admission: Free, reservations required. Call (512) 936-4649 for reservations

Austin, TX -- Today, the swift evolution of technological advances makes it possible to record and disseminate information about history-in-the-making events within a matter of minutes.

In conjunction with the Eyewitness exhibit (Now through April 20, 2008) currently featured at the Museum, which draws on rarely-displayed documents, audio recordings, and film footage from the extensive holdings of the National Archives and its Presidential Libraries and Regional Archives, the Power of the Eyewitness discussion will address technology's growing influence on eyewitness accounts.

Join Dr. Betty Sue Flowers, director of the National Archives' Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum, as she leads a discussion on how devices such as cell phones, digital video, and the World Wide Web are changing the speed, accuracy, and impact of current events.

The panel, including Neal Spelce, award-winning Austin broadcast journalist and entrepreneur, and Tracy Dahlby -- an award-winning print journalist and producer of historical documentaries for television -- who holds the Frank A. Bennack Chair in Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin, will address concerns regarding the public's ability to absorb, evaluate, and react critically to historic events related in an ever-increasingly fast-paced world.

Spelce's news experience includes 45 years of reporting for which he has won two of the nation's highest awards for journalism and two lifetime communications achievement awards. Probably his most famous eyewitness account was the audio feed supplied to all three networks as he reported live on the UT Tower shooting in 1966.

Dahlby spent 13 years in Asia, where he served as Tokyo bureau chief for Newsweek and The Washington Post and has covered events in Japan, China, Korea, and Southeast Asia. In 1987, he became managing editor of Newsweek International in New York, where he directed and coordinated worldwide news coverage.

This exhibition was created by the National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, and the Foundation for the National Archives. The national tour of Eyewitness is sponsored by The Boeing Company. Local support: The Albert and Ethel Herzstein Hall Fund. Admission to the Museum’s exhibits, including the special exhibit Eyewitness in the Albert and Ethel Herzstein Hall of Special Exhibitions: $7.00 for adults, $6.00 for seniors/military/college students (with valid ID), $4 for youth ages 5-18, free for ages 4 and under. The Museum is located at 1800 N. Congress Ave., at the corner of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. in downtown Austin. For more information, call 512-936-TSHM (512-936-8746)

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