Convocation: Marco Werman

Marco Werman is the host and senior producer of Public Radio International's "The World," a weekday radio news magazine offering a mix of news, features, interviews, and music from around the globe. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Werman got his start in radio while freelancing in Burkina Faso, West Africa, for the BBC World Service, where he later worked as a producer. In 1995, he was invited to assist in creating the format for The World where he has worked since. In 1997, he began producing the Global Hit segment, in which musicians and musical trends around the globe are linked and used as a lens to understand the news. Werman has received awards for an original radio drama, for an exposé on child labor in West African gold mines, for a BBC documentary on the 1987 assassination of Burkina Faso’s president, and for coverage of diversity issues. Werman was the first of American television and radio journalist to go to Libya after Muammar al-Gaddafi renounced weapons of mass destruction in December 2003, and in 2007 won an Emmy for his story "Libya: Out of the Shadow" on the PBS program Frontline/World, about the 2006 total solar eclipse that brought thousands of tourists to Libya just after it had rejoined the community of nations. Werman will discuss the importance of public broadcast as a means of keeping Americans informed and connected with global issues. The title of his presentation is "Stories, Not Punditry."