There are a number of speakers who travel in and through Greater Cincinnati without even a blip on the radar screen. Forget the much-publicized visits from George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, Laura Bush…the list could go on and on (can you tell I’m a wee bit tired of all this election stuff?). It’s been fun getting to know the local Secret Service office staff – even if they won’t tell you their name or smile much. I don’t take it personally.
Others come and go without much notice, but make great speakers whether you agree or disagree with them or their positions. One of those, I think, will be Mark Anthony Rolo. He’s a Native American journalist. Rolo is a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.
He will speak at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 16 in Xavier University, Alter Hall’s Kelley Auditorium. It’s part of Xavier’s Equity & Excellence series and in observance of National American Indian Heritage Month.
I look forward to asking him about something that caught the journalism world by storm last year: the shootings at a Red Lake, Minn. high school. The shootings happened on an Indian reservation, a sovereign nation, and journalists were perplexed and angered there were not able to cover the story the way they felt they should. Simply put, the Native Americans on the Red Lake Indian Reservation do not honor the Freedom of the Press the same way.
Also, check out Miami University’s speaker series. They have an impressive list upcoming with the likes of Gail Collins, The New York Times’ opinion page editor, former CBS Evening News anchor and “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer, former White House Press Secretary and PBS host, Bill Moyers, among others.