Please Note: MSU MEMO is archived as a part of Mississippi State University's history. Articles may refer to situations which have changed or people who are no longer affiliated with the university.
 |
February 4, 2002 Volume 26, Issue 24 |
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.
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 the 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.
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.