Contact: Maridith Geuder
A longtime CBS news producer and documentary filmmaker will discuss the media's response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks during a Feb. 4 public program at Mississippi State University.
New York native Harry Moses' presentation is this year's Tommie and Donald Zacharias Lecture. The 7:30 p.m. program in the Simrall Hall auditorium is sponsored by MSU's College of Arts and Sciences and honors MSU's president emeritus and his wife.
Moses has been a television producer, director and writer for more than 30 years, with more than 70 stories for the primetime news magazine "60 Minutes" to his credit. He has headed the investigative unit of "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather" and also was executive producer of special broadcasts featuring veteran journalists Mike Wallace and Bill Moyers.
His production company, the Mosaic Group, has developed a number of documentaries for major U.S. broadcast and cable television networks. In 1994, he directed the Showtime cable drama "Assault at West Point." Based on a book of the same name by MSU history professor John F. Marszalek, "Assault" tells the story of one of the first African-American cadets to attend the United States Military Academy.
Starring well-known actors Samuel L. Jackson and Sam Waterston, the Showtime production dramatized events surrounding Johnson Whittaker's late-19th-century experiences and controversial removal from the academy. The production led President Bill Clinton to posthumously award Whittaker a U.S. Army commission in 1995.
In 1994, Moses donated to MSU's Mitchell Memorial Library about 12,000 pages of manuscript materials gathered during his research for "Assault." Included are transcripts of proceedings from a court of inquiry and subsequent court martial of Whittaker, the third black man to enter West Point. The materials are available for research as part of Marszalek's donated papers in the library's special collections department.
Moses also produced the 1988 docudrama "The Trial of Berhnhard Goetz," which the New York Times called "the year's best docudrama." In addition to production work, he has had guest acting roles in a wide range of television dramas, including "Murder, She Wrote," "Hill Street Blues" and "Knots Landing."
For more information about Moses' lecture, telephone Danette Barrier of the College of Arts and Sciences at (662) 325-2646.