Celebrated journalist and author visits UAF

Submitted by Jeff Stepp
Phone: 474-1055
09/29/04

Award-winning journalist and author, Farai Chideya, is visiting the UAF Campus Oct. 15-16. In addition to a public lecture and discussion at the Wood Center Ballroom on Friday, Oct. 15, at 8 p.m., Farai will be the keynote speaker at the Student Leadership Conference on Saturday, Oct. 16. She will also speak to a UAF journalism class on Friday morning.

Farai Chideya is a multi-media journalist who has worked in print, television and online. Chideya has been a correspondent for ABC News, anchored the prime time program "Pure Oxygen" on the Oxygen women’s channel, and contributed commentaries to CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and BET. In 1997 Newsweek named her to its "Century Club" of 100 people to watch.

Chideya has published three books. "Don’t Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African Americans" (Plume Penguin, 1995), is now in its eighth printing. "The Color of Our Future" (William Morrow, 1999), explores the changing racial identities of America’s teens, and her travels from the Crow reservation in Montana to a ninety-nine percent white Indiana town to South Central Los Angeles. The book was named one of the best books for teens by the New York Public Library. It along with "Don’t Believe the Hype" are featured in college curricula across the country. Chideya’s new book, "Trust: Reaching the 100 Million Missing Voters" (Soft Skull, 2004), shows why half of Americans are cut out of the political system--and what we can do about it.