FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

AUTHOR DARNELL HUNT TO EXAMINE RACIAL DIVERSITY TRENDS ON TELEVISION AT LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY FORUM
University Welcomes Hunt On November 5 As Part Of Ongoing Forum On Media Ethics And Social Responsibility

October 29, 2003 -- Loyola Marymount University's Forum on Media Ethics and Social Responsibility presents "Racial Diversity on Television: A Status Report and Reflection on the Responsibilities of Representation," on Wednesday, November 5, at 7 p.m. in Ahmanson Auditorium (University Hall 1000).

The forum will feature a keynote lecture by Dr. Darnell Hunt of the University of California at Los Angeles, principal investigator of Prime Time in Black and White, a five-year study of diversity in primetime network TV. Hunt also will offer strategies to improve program development.

Hunt has written extensively on race and the media. He is the author of Screening the Los Angeles "Riots": Race, Seeing, Resistance and O.J. Simpson Facts and Fictions: News Rituals in the Construction of Reality. Currently, he serves as a professor of Sociology and the Director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA.

Lawrence Wenner, LMU's Von der Ahe Professor of Communication and Ethics, will host a question and answer session following Hunt's address.

Part of the Von der Ahe Communications and Ethics Initiative, the evening is one of a series of events that make up LMU's ongoing Forum on Media Ethics and Social Responsibility. The evening is co-sponsored by LMU's School of Film and Television and the College of Communication and Fine Arts.

Previous forums have addressed the development of a media ethics code, the ethics of stereotyping, and the portrayal of substance abuse in film and on television.

The program is free and open to the public. Parking is available below University Hall. For more information, call 310.338.2992.

About Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles
Founded in 1911, Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles is the eighth largest of the nation's 28 Jesuit colleges and universities and the largest Catholic university is Southern California. With a strong base in the liberal arts, LMU serves more than 5,300 undergraduates and nearly 3,000 graduate students. For more information, visit the LMU website at http://www.lmu.edu.

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