The University Record, January 21, 1997
Talk of the Nation to be broadcast live from Rackham Auditorium
Ray Suarez, host of National Public Radio’s (NPR) Talk of the Nation, will bring the program to Rackham Auditorium 2-4 p.m. Feb. 6 for a live national broadcast examining race relations in America.
The program, the midday voice of NPR News, offers public radio listeners discussion on the issues of the day and the issues behind the headlines in a talk show format. Listeners are able to express their opinions of the issues being considered by calling 1-800-989-TALK. The live audience for the Rackham broadcast also will have the opportunity to add their comments during the show.
The Ann Arbor broadcast of Talk of the Nation is presented by Michigan Radio in conjunction with the University’s 1997 Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium. Admission to the program is free. The broadcast may be heard on the listener-supported public radio stations of the U-M, WUOM, 91.7 FM in Ann Arbor; WFUM, 91.1 FM in Flint; and WVGR, 104.1 FM in Grand Rapids.
Widely recognized in the national press as a groundbreaking talk program, Talk of the Nation won the 1994-95 Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Silver Baton Award after Suarez hosted the program from Johannesburg, South Africa, as part of NPR’s coverage of the country’s first all-race elections.
Suarez brings almost 20 years’ experience in the news business to the daily broadcast. He joined Talk of the Nation in 1993, after more than seven years as a reporter with the NBC affiliate in Chicago. Prior to that, he was a Los Angeles correspondent for CNN, a producer for ABC Radio Network in New York City, a reporter for CBS in Rome and a reporter for American and British news services in London. An author with Simon and Schuster’s Free Press, Suarez’s book on white flight and the American city is scheduled to appear later this year. Widely published in the United States and Britain, he is now a contribution editor for Si Magazine, a national magazine for Latinos. The Los Angeles Times named Suarez one of its “100 People to Watch in 1996.”
