Ithaca College

The author of an award-winning exposé on the abuse of power by private military contractors will give a presentation at Ithaca College on Tuesday, December 2. Journalist Jeremy Scahill will discuss "The Importance of Independent Media in the Era of Conglomerates" at 7:30 p.m. in Park Auditorium. His talk, which is sponsored by the Park Center for Independent Media, is free and open to the public.

Scahill is a regular contributor to Democracy Now! and The Nation, and was an election correspondent for HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. Scahill's best seller -- Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army -- sparked federal investigations into private military contractors and won this year's Polk Book Award.

Scahill and Amy Goodman received a 1998 Polk Award for their radio documentary, Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, exposing the oil company's alliance with a dictatorship that led to the death of two environmental activists. Scahill has reported from Iraq to Yugoslavia to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.