New York Times Columnist David Brooks to Give Talk About ‘Media and Character’ at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – New York Times columnist David Brooks will deliver the annual Condé Nast Lecture on Media, Ethics and Values on Oct. 19 at 7:30 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom at the College of the Holy Cross. The title of the talk is "Media and Character." The talk is free and open to the public.

Brooks will speak about the importance of character in the new economy and how the media speaks about it. "In the information age, a person’s cultural capital is more important in determining success than finance capital. What matters most is motivation, habits, discipline and flexibility — in a word, character," he said.

Brooks’ column on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times began in September 2003. He is a weekly political commentator on National Public Radio and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He is author of The New York Times bestseller BoBos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (Simon & Schuster, 2000), On Paradise Drive (Simon & Schuster, 2004), and the Atlantic Monthly article, "The Organization Kids" about this generation’s Princeton students. Previously, Brooks had been a senior editor at The Weekly Standard and a contributing editor at Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly.

Previous speakers in the series include David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker; Matthew Rose, reporter for the Wall Street Journal; Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation; and Peter Steinfels, columnist for The New York Times.

The lecture is made possible by a gift from Condé Nast Publications, coordinated by the company’s former president and CEO Steve Florio, parent of graduates from the classes of 2000 and 2003.

Condé Nast publishes numerous magazines including The New Yorker, Vogue, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, Bon Appetit and Gourmet. Condé Nast Publications mission stresses its commitment "to journalistic integrity, influential reporting and superior design."