Presenters, MC announced for Mirror Awards ceremony June 9

Chris Ahearn, Margaret Carlson and Howard Dean will present awards at the third annual Mirror Awards luncheon, sponsored by Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, on Tuesday, June 9, at 11:45 a.m. at the Harmonie Club in New York City. Contessa Brewer ’96 will serve as MC.

Chris Ahearn
Ahearn is president of Reuters Media at Thomson Reuters, a global division that includes the News Agency and Publishing business lines, where he oversees the publishing and distribution of news and information services to media and business professionals. He was previously the executive vice president of the Reuters Research & Advisory business, where he developed the Reuters Knowledge product line.

Ahearn joined Reuters in 2001 from J.P. Morgan, where he held positions in LabMorgan, the technology, media and telecommunications group, and the financial institutions group. Prior to J.P. Morgan, he worked in the financial institutions group at Credit Suisse First Boston.

Margaret Carlson
Margaret Carlson is a political columnist for Bloomberg News and appears on its weekly program “Political Capital” with Al Hunt. She is also Washington editor of The Week magazine. She makes frequent appearances on “Meet the Press,” MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and CNN. Previously, she was a panelist on CNN’s “The Capital Gang,” which ran for 17 years.

After serving as managing editor for The New Republic, she joined Time and, with her column, “Public Eye,” became the first woman columnist in the magazine’s history.

Howard Dean
Dean is a consultant with Democracy for America, an organization he founded in 2004, which supports progressive issues and candidates across the country. He also currently serves as a senior strategic advisor and independent consultant for the government affairs practice at McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP, where he focuses on health care and energy issues.

After gaining national prominence as a U.S. presidential candidate in 2004, Dean led the Democratic Party to success as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. He previously served as the Governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003.

Contessa Brewer
A veteran television journalist, Brewer is a widely-recognized anchor on MSNBC. She is known for her marathon on-air coverage of breaking news and big political stories. She also contributes reports to NBC broadcasts and hosts MSNBC’s prime-time series, “Caught on Camera.”

A 1996 graduate of the Newhouse School, Brewer spent seven years in local news before joining MSNBC in 2003. She began her career at KRNV in Reno, Nevada as a reporter-photographer. She later served as an anchor and reporter in Palm Springs, California, where she interviewed many celebrities, star athletes and nationally-known politicians. She also worked at WTMJ in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The Mirror Awards, established by the Newhouse School in 2006, honor the reporters, editors and teams of writers who hold a mirror to their own industry for the public’s benefit. Honorees are recognized for news judgment and command of craft in reporting, analysis and commentary on developments in the media industry and its role in our economy, culture and democracy.

For more information about the Mirror Awards, contact Jean Brooks at (315) 443-5711 or mirror@syr.edu or see mirrorawards.syr.edu. For press inquiries, contact Wendy Loughlin at (315) 443-2785 or wsloughl@syr.edu.