Future in Communications 2008

The Alumnae Association, together with Mount Holyoke College and the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts and the Mount Holyoke College's communications office, sponsored this event, a gathering for alumnae and students in the fields of journalism and communications. The event began Friday February 29, 2008 evening and ended Saturday afternoon, March 1.

Additional images are avilable in the online Photo Gallery.

The Future of Media:
Who Will Tell the Stories, and Who Will Read Them

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Opening keynote address by Priscilla Painton ’80. Introduction and welcome by W. Rochelle Calhoun ’83, executive director, Alumnae Association. Welcoming remarks by President Joanne Creighton.

Priscilla Painton ’80 was named editor-in-chief of the Simon & Schuster adult trade imprint in January 2008. Painton, who was most recently deputy managing editor of Time magazine, will begin her new position in March. Painton joined Time in 1989 as a reporter and went on to edit every section of the magazine. She served longest as Time’s Nation editor, responsible for all political and domestic news. In that role she oversaw Time’s investigation of the campaign finance scandals, which won the magazine the prestigious Goldsmith Investigative Journalism Prize. She was also responsible for the coverage of the Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996, the rise and fall of Newt Gingrich, and the presidential campaign of 2000. In 1998, she oversaw the magazine’s coverage of the Kenneth Starr investigation and President’s Clinton’s impeachment trial and edited Time’s “Men of the Year” cover story on Kenneth Starr and Bill Clinton. Painton also served as Time’s executive editor before being appointed deputy managing editor, which made her the highest ranking woman editor ever in the history of the magazine. Prior to joining Time, Painton worked for the Atlanta Journal & Constitution, where she was a political and projects reporter. She has also worked at The Washington Post and The Berkshire Eagle, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Painton has a B.A. in history from Mount Holyoke College. Born in Rome and raised in Paris—she is fluent in French—she now lives in New York and has two teenagers.

Web Journalism and New Media

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Keynote address by Elizabeth Spiers. Introduction by Leanna James Blackwell, director of communications, Alumnae Association.

Elizabeth Spiers is the founder of Dead Horse Media, which produces DealBreaker.com, an online business tabloid and Wall Street blog; Fashionista.com, a fashion-industry blog; and other Web publications. Her debut novel, And They All Die in the End, will be published by Riverhead Books. Until November of 2005, Spiers was the editor-in-chief of mediabistro.com. Prior to mediabistro, she was a contributing writer and editor at New York magazine, covering entertainment, media, and business. Spiers was previously the founding editor of Gawker.com, one of Time magazine’s “Top 50 Web sites” for 2003. She has written for the New York Times, New York Post, and Salon.com, among other publications, and has spoken at various media and technology conferences. She has also been a guest commentator on CNN, Fox News, CBS, Marketwatch, MSNCB, and VH1. She graduated from Duke University with a B.A. in political science and public policy.