Jim McLean presenting 15th annual Huck Boyd Lecture in Community Media
Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014
MANHATTAN — Jim McLean, the executive editor of the Kansas Health Institute News Service, will be the speaker for Kansas State University's 15th annual Huck Boyd Lecture in Community Media at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, in Forum Hall at the K-State Student Union. His topic will be "Health Coverage in Community Media."
McLean's lecture and a panel discussion following are in conjunction with activities coordinated by the Kansas State Book Network committee. The committee selected "The Ghost Map" by Steven Johnson as the 2014 common book for the university's first-year students. The book is about the 1854 London cholera epidemic, but parallels can be drawn to today's urban sprawl, bioterrorism, scientific inquiry and the reporting of health issues to the public.
Before joining the Kansas Health Institute, McLean was a managing editor at the Topeka Capital-Journal, where he also served stints as business editor and state government reporter. He got his start in journalism at Kansas Public Radio, serving first as the station's statehouse bureau chief and later as news director.
The panel discussion — from 10:30-11:45 a.m. — will be "Beyond 'The Ghost Map': Perspectives on Health Communication." Panelists include Alan Bavley, who has more than 25 years as a medical writer and who has been at the Kansas City Star since 1988; Larry Dreiling, senior field editor for The High Plains Journal; Michael McNulty, director of homeland security operations at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment; and John Webster, graduate faculty associate and education officer for the Biosecurity Research Institute at Kansas State University.
The Huck Boyd National Center for Community Media is part of the College of Arts & Sciences' A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Founded in 1990, the center strives to serve and strengthen local newspapers, radio stations, cable systems and other media that play a key role in the survival and revitalization of America's small towns. Huck Boyd believed in preserving the small-town lifestyle and small-town media. Boyd, a Phillipsburg native, published The Phillips County Review, recruited industry to the community and was active in Republican politics, both in Kansas and nationally.
