PCV Speaker Series: The President Has Been Shot!”

 Five words that immediately, simultaneously, ignite two physical and emotional reactions:

1) Whole body tenses, nerve endings seem to be bursting through the skin.

2) Brain shouts “MOBILIZE EVERYONE!”

 On March 30 1981, those nerves and that brain belonged to Ron Cohen, managing editor of United Press International. Ronald Reagan had been shot outside the Washington Hilton and was being rushed into emergency surgery at GW Hospital, his life in the balance.

Twelve interminable hours later, UPI’s breaking news coverage finally was wrapped up for America’s morning newspapers, and for readers and listeners in every corner of the globe. And Ron Cohen had survived the most exhilarating and exhausting half-day of his life.

UPI’s coverage would win runner-up for journalism’s most prestigious award, the Pulitzer Prize (Ron says “We wuz robbed!”). 

Join Ron at the PCV Speakers Series,  Thursday, Jan. 15 at the Potomac Community Center. He will bring you every “nerve-tingling” detail from that day in the UPI newsroom in Washington. We’ll also discuss how the influence of print journalism has waned, as most people rely on frequently unreliable and biased Internet sources.  Are we in a world inadequately informed, often misinformed? Is it too late to do anything about it?

Free and open to all. 

PCV members - If you need a ride to come, please indicate that you need a ride when you register for this event by setting the ride field to "need a ride".   Everyone, if you can offer a ride, please indicate that as well.