Author and New Yorker Contributor Ken Auletta to Speak at SSP’s 2015 Annual Meeting

We are delighted to announce that author, journalist, and media critic Ken Auletta will speak at the upcoming Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) Annual Meeting, to be held May 27–29 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia.

The keynote session will focus on the theme of this year’s Annual Meeting: “The New Big Picture: Connecting Diverse Perspectives.” Publishers, societies, librarians, funders, authors, and researchers have all observed their ecosystem evolving in response to changes brought about by new technology, government directives, budget challenges, and user preferences—the big picture is shifting. Auletta will join host John Inglis of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press for a discussion of this shift, with additional questions coming from the audience.

Auletta has written Annals of Communications columns and profiles for The New Yorker since 1992. He is the author of eleven books, including five national bestsellers: Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; Greed And Glory On Wall Street: The Fall of The House of Lehman; The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Super Highway; World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies; and Googled, The End of the World As We Know It, which was published in November of 2009.

Auletta was among the first to popularize the so-called information superhighway with his February, 1993, profile of Barry Diller’s search for something new. He has profiled the leading figures and companies of the Information Age, including Google, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, AOL Time Warner, John Malone, Harvey Weinstein, and the New York Times. He has dissected “push” technology and interactive TV; probed media violence, the PAC giving of communication giants, and the fat lecture fees earned by journalist/pundits; and explored what “synergy” may mean to journalism. His 2001 profile of Ted Turner won a National Magazine Award as the best profile of the year. He also covered the Microsoft antitrust trial for the magazine. In ranking him as America’s premier media critic, the Columbia Journalism Review concluded, “no other reporter has covered the new communications revolution as thoroughly as has Auletta.” New York Magazine described him as the “media Boswell.”

In another life, Auletta taught and trained Peace Corps volunteers; served as Special Assistant to the U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce; worked in Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 campaign for the Presidency; was Executive Editor of the weekly Manhattan Tribune; was state Campaign Manager for Howard J. Samuels, helping him lose two races for Governor of New York; and was the first Executive Director of the New York City Off Track Betting Corporation.

Starting in 1974, he was the chief political correspondent for the New York Post, then staff writer and weekly columnist for the Village Voice and Contributing Editor of New York Magazine. He started writing for The New Yorker in 1977. Between 1977 and 1993, he wrote a weekly political column for the New York Daily News. He has hosted numerous public television programs and served as a political commentator for both WNBC-TV and WCBS-TV. He has written for numerous publications, written and narrated a 90-minute biography of Rupert Murdoch for PBS’s Frontline, and has appeared regularly on Nightline, the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Charlie Rose. He was the guest editor of The Best Business Stories of The Year: 2002 Edition, an annual volume published by Random House.

Auletta has won numerous journalism honors. He has been chosen a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library, and one of the 20th century’s top 100 business journalists by a distinguished national panel of peers.