POSTPONED – Access: Storytelling in the Modern Media

**Due to a scheduling conflict, the event has been postponed. The event page will be updated once a new date has been confirmed.**

With superficial sound bites, scripted promos, talking heads, and the 24-hour news cycle, it’s hard not to be skeptical or indifferent of the present-day media. In this ephemeral landscape, how do documentary films that focus on recent history differ from cable and the mainstream press? What form will have a longer and more significant impact?

New America welcomes Greg Barker and Ben Rhodes to discuss the nature of long-form documentary storytelling; its differences and challenges when compared with conventional media; and the motivations behind the characters who choose to participate in it. ASU Future of War Fellow Greg Barker is a prolific documentary filmmaker who looks for strong personal narratives that illuminate the complexities and moral ambiguities of global politics and war. Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications in the Obama Administration, is a cast member of Barker’s most recent project, the HBO Documentary Film The Final Year. 

The film is a sweeping insider’s account of President Obama’s foreign policy team during their last year in office. Rhodes joined Obama’s first Presidential campaign in 2007 as the foreign policy speechwriter and continued to serve in that role, as well as one of the President’s key advisers, until the end of Obama’s presidency. He is the Co-Chair of National Security Action, Chief International Advisor at the Obama Foundation, and publishing his first book, The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House, this June. 

Join them, moderator Tresha Mabile, and the New America Fellows Program for a comprehensive conversation on the essential qualities of modern storytelling.

Participants: 

Greg Barker, @gjbarker 
ASU Future of War Fellow, New America 
Director, The Final Year 

Ben Rhodes, @brhodes 
Co-Chair, National Security Action 
Former Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting, Obama Administration  

Moderator: 

Tresha Mabile
Emmy-nominated Documentary Producer
Producer, Legions of Brothers (CNN Films), Premiered at Sundance 2017

Lunch will be provided. 
Discussion will begin promptly at 1 pm. 

Film Details 
Premieres Monday, May 21st on HBO at 8p/7c 
#TheFinalYear | @HBODocs 
Facebook.com/hbodocs 
www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-final-year

Follow the conversation online using #TheFinalYear and following @NewAmerica.