Scheduled for Wednesday, March 27th at 7 pm, the event will take place in the Tom Smith Auditorium located in the Ketner Building on the Catawba campus. The event will feature an informal conversation-style Q&A session with esteemed panelists including Travis Fain, Jim Morrill, and David Whisenant. It will be moderated by Dr. Michael Bitzer, Director of the NC Center for Politics & Public Service and Professor of History and Politics. The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Communications in the Ketner School of Business.
“We are excited to kick off the activities of the NC Center of Politics and Public Service with such a timely and relevant discussion,” said Bitzer. “In today’s rapidly changing media landscape, understanding the intersection of journalism and politics is crucial, and we believe this event will provide valuable insights for our community.”
Fain recently started a communications consultancy, CTF Communications. He is also one of North Carolina’s most well-known political reporters having served seven years at Raleigh’s NBC station WRAL covering NC’s statehouse. He has broken some of the biggest and exposed some of the most important stories over his 25 years in the industry.
Morrill started at the Charlotte Observer in 1981 and covered state and local politics for almost 40 years before his retirement in 2020. He won several press awards and in 1999 was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard. Morrill has also taught classes about NC politics at UNC-Charlotte, Queens University, and Davidson College.
Whisenant was a Salisbury-based reporter retiring from the Charlotte CBS station WBTV in 2023 after 32 years. Whisenant started at a Salisbury-based radio station when he was still in high school in 1976. Whisenant’s coverage expanded well outside Salisbury and Rowan County. In January 2024, he received the highest civilian honor in the state of North Carolina, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
