Reese Elrich

I went to listen to Reese Erlich, a famous journalist and author, who was giving a lecture in Berkeley’s School of Journalism last night. He is a very interesting man and is working on a new book about Iran. He is funny and witty and has so much to tell. He traveled to Iran with the San Francisco Chronicle group which included Sean Penn during the presidential elections two years ago. He talked about his book, about his talks with Shirin Ebadi and others in Tehran. More importantly, he talked about the media coverage of the Iraqi war and the situation there, talking about red lines and censorship in the US. The thing that is really interesting about attending small lectures by world-class figures at UC is that the audience is also very interesting, and asks intelligent, articulate, and challenging questions. You learn a lot from the speaker, and even more from all the faculty members, scholars, and activists who attend the lectures. That’s why it is really important to stay and listen to the Q/A session. Unfortunately I had to leave more than half-way into the Q/A to take care of other things. It was another enlightening day for me at Berkeley. I think I learned something new.