The University Record, October 1, 1996
News correspondent John Hockenberry will kick off Investing in Ability Week
By Bernie DeGroat
News and Information Services
Emmy Award-winning news correspondent John Hockenberry of “Dateline NBC” and the new MSNBC news network will share his experiences as a broadcast journalist and paraplegic in a campus talk 8 p.m. Oct. 14 at the Michigan Union Ballroom.
Hockenberry’s talk, which kicks off “Investing in Ability Week,” is sponsored by the University’s Affirmative Action Office and Council for Disability Concerns.
Hockenberry, confined to a wheelchair since an auto accident at age 19, is best known for his work as a general assignment reporter, Middle East correspondent and program host and producer at National Public Radio (NPR), where he served from 1980 until 1993. Prior to joining NBC this year, he worked for two years at ABC News as a correspondent for the news-magazine program “Day One.”
He also is author of Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs and Declarations of Independence, his memoir of life as a foreign correspondent who has overcome many obstacles.
In addition, the two-time Peabody Award-winning journalist has written a one-man play currently being performed off Broadway, and has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Modern Maturity and Columbia Journalism Review.
While at NPR, Hockenberry reported for “All Things Considered,” hosted “Weekend Edition Saturday” and anchored “Talk of the Nation.” He also spent two years as a correspondent in Jerusalem during the most intensive conflict of the Palestinian uprising, and later covered the Persian Gulf War, where he was one of the first Western broadcast journalists to report from Kurdish refugee camps in northern Iraq and southern Turkey.
Tickets are $10 and are available at the Michigan Union Ticket Office and all TicketMaster outlets. To charge by phone, call (313) 763-TKTS or (810) 645-6666.
