Richard N. Kaplan, president of CNN/U.S. of the CNN News Group, will give an address followed by a question-and-answer session Thursday, March 30, at 8 p.m. in the David L. Call Alumni Auditorium, Kennedy Hall, on the Cornell University campus. The address, titled "News Reporting Today: Issues in Impartial Reporting," is free and open to the public.

Kaplan heads CNN/U.S., the U.S. news network and flagship network of the CNN News Group. Kaplan joined CNN after a distinguished career at both ABC and CBS News, where he was one of the most honored news executives in television history.

Kaplan was executive producer of Nightline from 1984 to 1989, and he guided the late-night news program through an extraordinary period of innovation and exclusive interviews. While at Nightline, in March 1985, Kaplan produced the historic weeklong series of broadcasts originating from Johannesburg, South Africa, that marked the first meeting ever between Bishop Desmond Tutu and apartheid leader Roelof "Pik" Botha, former South African foreign minister. In 1988, Kaplan was executive producer of Nightline in the Holy Land, a critically acclaimed weeklong series in which Palestinian and Israeli leaders met for the first time to debate the political realities of the region. He also was responsible for an unprecedented four-hour Nightline on AIDS.

Before joining Nightline, Kaplan was executive producer of World News This Morning and Good Morning America news. He joined ABC News in 1979 as a senior producer for World News Tonight. Previously, he was a producer for The CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite. In addition to his responsibilities as president of CNN/U.S., Kaplan has held the position since 1998 of adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he teaches each year.

Kaplan's visit is sponsored by the Cornell Undergraduate Communication Association, the Cornell chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America, the Department of Communication and the Cornell University Program Board. For more information, contact Jaclyn Kaplan at (607) 269-0171 or by e-mail at jjk22@cornell.edu.