Thursday, May 6 at 7 p.m.
It's a local tradition! Every four years, following a presidential election in the US, the Springfield Public Forum engages a public media journalist and a local scholar to talk about the first 100 days of the new administration. This time, it will be a virtual event hosted on Zoom.
Join New England Public Media and The Springfield Public Forum for a conversation with NPR White House Correspondent Tamara Keith and Professor Ray La Raja of UMass Amherst. Get their take on the first 100 days of the Biden Presidency. What was promised? What was accomplished and what wasn't? What's next for the new administration? The conversation will be introduced by Dara Kennedy, host of NEPM’s ‘And Another Thing.’
This virtual event is free and open to the public; preregistration on Zoom is required.
ABOUT TAMARA KEITH
Tamara Keith has been a White House correspondent for NPR since 2014 and co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast, the top political news podcast in America. Keith has chronicled the Trump administration from day one, putting this unorthodox presidency in context for NPR listeners, from early morning tweets to executive orders and investigations. She covered the final two years of the Obama presidency, and during the 2016 presidential campaign she was assigned to cover Hillary Clinton. In 2018, Keith was elected to serve on the board of the White House Correspondents' Association. Previously Keith covered congress for NPR with an emphasis on House Republicans, the budget, taxes, and the fiscal fights that dominated at the time.
ABOUT RAY LA RAJA
Ray La Raja is a Professor of Political Science at UMass Amherst. His areas of expertise include political parties, interest groups, campaign finance, elections, political participation, American state and local politics, public policy and political reform. He is co-author with Brian Schaffner and Jesse Rhodes of Hometown Inequality: Race, Class, and Representation in American Local Politics (Cambridge University Press 2020). He previously co-authored with Brian Schaffner, Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail (Univ. of Michigan Press 2015).
He is a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Campaign Finance Institute, and Associate Director of the UMass Poll, which conducts public opinion research in Massachusetts and the United States.
ABOUT DARA KENNEDY
Dara Kennedy is a broadcast journalist who recently spent over five years working abroad as an anchor, producer, and speaker. She has been on Emmy-winning production teams and as a host and reporter has covered news and politics to sports and business. Kennedy has delivered worldly breaking news and top stories and has interviewed top names for TV networks in America, London, and the Middle East. She has also served as a foreign correspondent covering Africa and the Americas.
Dara was the first African American woman to anchor NESN’s nightly flagship show in Boston. She also hosted several broadcasts of NEPM’s Connecting Point last fall, including the primetime television special, “Generation Vote.”