Harwood available to discuss State of the Union with media
Thursday, January 26, 2006(The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation)Below is a reproduction of a media adivsory sent to print and broadcast media across the country:
WASHINGTON - Richard C. Harwood, president and founder of The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, and recent author of Hope Unraveled: The People's Retreat and Our Way Back, welcomes the opportunity to speak to members of the print and broadcast media about the State of the Union leading up to and following the president's address this Tuesday evening.
Harwood recently completed a nationwide book tour to talk about the findings of his latest book, and the stories he heard on the road only reaffirm those findings.
In Hope Unraveled, he argues that Americans have retreated from politics and public life. This retreat is driven in large part by leaders at both the national and local levels who no longer reflect the reality of citizens' daily lives in their words and actions. In some cases, people believe that these leaders even purposefully distort their reality for political gain.
The result is that people feel enraged but also powerless to do anything about it, which leads to an overwhelming feeling of being trapped. The vast majority of Americans have, as a result, chosen to retreat into their close-knit cirlces of family and friends and disengage from public life.
The authentic voices of Americans tell a far different story from what citizens hear from most media, political pundits, many academics, and political leaders, all of whom believe the nation has simply become a more divided society.
Unfortunately, the political strategies pursued under this false analysis force people to retreat farther and farther into their close-knit cirlces. The rhetoric from both political parties surrounding issues such as the Alito nomination, the Abramoff scandal, and the recently uncovered National Security Agency program suggest that this trend will continue.
Harwood has been featured at hundreds of events and is a frequent keynote speaker for foundations and national organizations. He is a commentator and contributor on national and syndicated television, newspapers, radio, and Web sites, including MSNBC, the Christian Science Monitor, CNN's Inside Politics, The Jim Bohannon Show, Special Report with Brit Hume, and C-SPAN, as well as on Dallas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and National Public Radio, where he has been the featured guest on Talk of the Nation. In October of 1999, Harwood was a featured speaker along with Colin Powell and Doris Kearns Goodwin at the White House Fellows 35th Anniversary Program.
For more information on Harwood's work and his ideas, visit his blog, Redeeming Hope. This week, he is writing a four-part series titled, "The State of Our Union," which addresses some of the fundamental issues American society faces.
Harwood can be scheduled for an interview by contacting Mike Wood, head of external communications for The Harwood Institute, at (301) 656-3669 or mwood@theharwoodinstitute.org.
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