War and Peace: Dick Gordon, C. Everett Koop give talks

Dick Gordon, former war correspondent and current host of The Connection

Dick Gordon, former war correspondent for Canadian radio and current host of the popular public radio show The Connection, and former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop were among the esteemed public figures who gave talks on campus last month.

As a reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Dick Gordon was stationed in war zones around the globe. Gordon gave all of that up when he came to Boston to become host of WBUR's talk show The Connection. He spoke to a standing-room-only crowd last month at Zero Marlborough Street about his work as a journalist in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Lebanon, South Africa, Sri Lanka and other sites of conflict. His talk was part of the "Conversations on Journalism" series sponsored by the Department of Journalism.

"A lot of people of my generation got swept into coverage of the Gulf War," said Gordon. "A lot of us were plucked from the comfort of parliamentary hearings and sent overseas."

Foreign correspondents must be savvy and practical, securing the services of a translator or a "fixer," someone who can get a car and driver, who can help arrange interviews, and accomplish tasks that a foreigner might not be able to.

Gordon believes in taking a human interest approach to reporting. By the time Gordon was stationed in Moscow in 1992, "no one cared [about the political situation there] anymore. What we ended up doing was traveling." He journeyed to Yerevan, where "people were burning the city's trees as firewood to keep warm. I had a choice. I could talk to the people and see how they were getting on, or wait two days for an interview with a [state official]. It is only when you describe the circumstances of people's lives that you will begin to penetrate the consciousness of [your audience]."

Gordon criticized some media coverage of the aftermath of Sept. 11, noting that one of the major broadcasting outlets immediately dubbed its coverage "America Rising." "You're not a cheerleader for the nation," he said. "You're supposed to be giving sober reflection on what happened."

Gordon took over The Connection in the wake of the controversial exit by its previous host, Christopher Lydon. Gordon's goals for the high-profile show, which is syndicated on 70 public radio stations, include making it "a little edgier, a little smarter, a little different." His aim is to "do an hour as close to the news of the day as we can."

Jeffrey Dvorkin, National Public Radio ombudsman, introduced Gordon and moderated the talk.Healthy ConversationSpeaking on topics ranging from the pitfalls of managed care, to stem cell research, to the threat of a smallpox public health hazard, former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop spoke to an audience of students and faculty last month at the Tremont Boston Hotel.

A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and currently senior scholar at the C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth College, Koop addressed questions from the audience rather than deliver prepared remarks.

On medical education, Koop said he has observed improvement in the last 10 years, but there is much room to grow. "It seemed to me very odd that everyone involved [students, faculty, patients] was unhappy. If all three factions are unhappy, it's time for [reform]." He also advocated for an approach that allows medical students to have immediate interaction with patients. "You get to medical school, and you've been waiting for this day all your life, but the first two years are the same as your college classes. You never touch a patient."

Koop lamented managed care for many reasons, among them the fact that it fosters an environment in which house calls are unheard of. "I think you can learn more in a house call sitting around the kitchen having a cup of coffee than you can in 10 office visits," Koop asserted.

He also spoke about the top health concern in the U.S. today: the anthrax threat. "Anthrax is a veterinary disease. You'll find that the prevalence of anthrax bacillus is very high, but it seldom jumps from the animal kingdom to [humans]." If a human does contract anthrax-related illness, "if you get to it early, it's susceptible to a number of antibiotics."

Koop also addressed fears that smallpox could be re-introduced in the U.S. "The troubles with smallpox are many. We have 270 million people in this country and we have 3 million doses of vaccine." It takes years to produce significant quantities of the vaccine, he added.

At the close of Koop's remarks, Dean Stuart Sigman presented Koop with several gifts, including a memento in honor of Koop's mother-in-law, who was a member of Emerson College's Class of 1909.

Koop was the first speaker in the 2001-02 Medical Messengers lecture series, sponsored by Emerson's College of Communication along with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Tufts University School of Medicine. The series is organized by Emerson professors Sarah Keller (Communication) and Janet Kolodzy (Journalism).