ABOUT JOYCE BARNATHAN

Joyce Barnathan was president of the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) for 15 years, where she helped develop and oversee a wide variety of high-impact programs at the nexus of quality journalism and technology. She ensured that the organization was at the forefront of a changing media landscape. Under her leadership, ICFJ transformed how journalists tell compelling stories and engage audiences. The revenue at ICFJ more than quadrupled since she took over as president in mid-2006.

Previously, Barnathan served as the executive editor, Global Franchise, for BusinessWeek. She oversaw editorial content, managed product launches, created alliances, and ensured the integration of all BusinessWeek offerings across all channels. She was also assistant managing editor, responsible for the magazine’s Finance, Economics, Investor, and Lifestyle departments.

Prior to that, Barnathan completed a seven-year assignment as the Asia regional editor and Hong Kong bureau manager for BusinessWeek. In addition to her reporting and editing duties, she helped launch the magazine’s Asian edition and managed its growing network of correspondents and stringers throughout the region.

Barnathan came to BusinessWeek from Newsweek, where she served as State Department correspondent, Moscow Bureau Chief and Special Projects Correspondent covering presidential elections.

Barnathan holds a bachelor’s degree in Russian and Chinese studies and a master’s degree in Asian studies from Washington University, as well as a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. She is the winner of five Overseas Press Club Awards, including three as part of BusinessWeek's Asia team, as well as the National Headliner Award. She was a trustee of the Arthur F. Burns Fellowships Program and served as chair of the Global Forum for Media Development.

Barnathan has three children and three grandchildren–and another grandson on the way. She is now working on a project about how her father, an ABC-TV executive, was instrumental in developing closed captioning on television for the deaf and hard of hearing–a technology we all benefit from today.

ABOUT GENE GIBBONS

Gene Gibbons covered Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton during a 40-year career as a political journalist. Gibbons is a former Reuters’ chief White House correspondent and previously was a Washington-based United Press International (UPI) reporter.

Gibbons served on the board of the White House Correspondents Association and is a past president of the Radio-Television Correspondents Association. His career highlights include serving as a Presidential Debate panelist in 1992 and as a Joan M. Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2010. He has appeared on The PBS NewsHour and other telecasts.

Gibbons is a graduate of the University of Scranton (’64) and received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater in 1996. He has four grown children and seven grandchildren. His favorite pastimes include photography, hiking and sailing. Gibbons was a volunteer coach for the U.S. Naval Academy varsity offshore sailing team for more than 10 years and is a veteran of numerous long distance ocean races. His memoir, Breaking News, Six Presidents – The Queen – A Pope, A Life in Journalism, is available now.

ABOUT STEVE STRASSER

Steve Strasser was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and spent his earliest years in Detroit and Rogers City

before his family moved to Minnesota, Canada and then Pennsylvania. He spent four years in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam era, then majored in journalism and political science at the University of Nebraska, working for the campus newspaper and landing newspaper internships at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Milwaukee Journal.

Upon graduation in 1973 Strasser got a job in the West Palm Beach bureau of the Miami Herald, and after a year there was promoted to the main office in Miami, where he served as the Herald’s education writer. He took a year off to get a master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University, then worked for another year at the Herald.

In 1977 Strasser moved to New York City as a writer in the Foreign Department of Newsweek Magazine. He held writing and editing jobs at the magazine, worked as a foreign correspondent in Moscow and served as Asia Editor out of Hong Kong. Back in New York he served as National Affairs Editor during the 2000 elections. He left Newsweek in 2002 as Managing Editor of Newsweek International.

Over the next four years Strasser co-authored several books, including a memoir by the commanding general of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and another by the FBI official who served as “Deep Throat” during the Watergate investigation. At the same time, he taught journalism at Rutgers University and Purchase College.

In 2006 Strasser joined the founding faculty of the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, where he served as chair of the curriculum committee. He retired as a tenured associate professor in 2016.