Minnesotans Afloat in the Wireless Pond?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JANUARY 15, 2008

Minnesotans Afloat in the Wireless Pond?
Journalist Keynotes Sesquicentennial Event

Kenneth Brusic, executive editor of the Orange County (CA) Register, will be the keynote speaker at conference whimsically entitled “Afloat in the Wireless Pond” on Saturday, March 1, 2008. Exploring the changes that the Internet is making in our lives on the state, local, and personal levels, the conference will take place at Luther Seminary, 2481 Como, St. Paul, from 9:00-4:00.

The conference, funded in part by the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Commission as part of the celebration of Minnesota’s 150th anniversary of statehood, is cosponsored by the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information and the Minnesota Independent Scholars’ Forum.

Brusic will speak to the challenges that newspapers face in this time of Internet saturation. Under Brusic’s leadership the Orange County Register has been involved in rethinking the nature of the newspaper business. “We are more than a newspaper; we are really an information company,” he says. In addition to the daily and Sunday newspaper the OCR runs 23 community weeklies, an Orange County Home magazine and the OCRegister.com website.

Ken Brusic graduated from the University of Denver and has a Master’s Degree from the School of Journalism of the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has previously worked on the Boulder Daily Camera, the Wichita Eagle, and the Quincy (MA) Patriot Ledger. He joined the Orange County Register in 1989. Under his leadership the Register won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting in 1996. In late 2007 he was named Communicator of the Year by at he School of Communication at California State University in Fullerton.

Other scheduled speakers include David Wiggins, Mississippi River Visitor Center; Laura Waterman Wittstock, CEO of Wittstock Associates; Jane Leonard, Executive Director of the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Commission; Thomas Leighton, Principal City Planner, City of Minneapolis; librarian and geographer Carol Urness; Jim Ramstrom of the Land Management Information Center; Helen Burke, Director of the federal depository library at Minneapolis Public Library; scholar and educator Peter Shea, and youth representatives of the state’s History Day program.

The day will also include demonstrations of initiatives that employ the Internet to expand access to public information. Emphasis is on raising public awareness of the profound impact of the Internet, the implicit but systemic changes and the potential – and limits – of technology to promote civic awareness and involvement. Participants will have an opportunity to focus on information as a public good to be produced, preserved and made accessible as essential to an informed citizenry – in the past and in the future.

Registration ( $20 payable at the door ) includes lunch and materials. Seating is limited; early registration is advised at mncogi@gmail.com.

Questions:
Lucy Brusic 612 860 2495 or lucy@brusic.net
Or check the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information website: www.mncogi.org
(Get .Doc of press release)