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The producers
of "NC Spin" taped a special edition of the show on the
campus of Elon University Oct. 13 in Whitley Auditorium. Students,
faculty and staff attended the taping, which featured the show's
host Tom Campbell and panelists John Hood, Chris Fitzsimon, Brad
Crone and Dan Blue.
The political-talk
program bills itself as "North Carolina's Most Intelligent Television
Talk Show." After the taping, the faculty and staff of the School
of Communications hosted a reception in the main lobby of McEwen
for the TV participants.
It was an evening
for politics in McEwen, as classrooms were opened for student and
faculty viewing of the final of the fall's three presidential debates,
featuring John Kerry and George Bush answering questions posed by
long-time CBS journalist Bob Schieffer. McEwen has been a viewing
venue all fall, hosting large crowds of students for each of the
three Kerry-Bush debates.
 Campbell
is the creator, executive producer and moderator of "NC Spin."
He comes from a rich family tradition of public involvement in North
Carolina. His family founded Campbell University as well as WNCT-TV,
the first television station in eastern North Carolina. He worked
in his family's broadcast business for over 24 years, writing and
delivering daily radio editorials.
"NC Spin"
panelist Crone is president of Campaign Connections, a Raleigh-based
political and public-affairs consulting firm. He founded the firm
in 1991 after serving as publisher of The Thomasville Times and
The Clayton Star. In politics, Crone worked with D.M. "Lauch" Faircloth
when he ran for governor as a Democrat in 1984 and served as a special
assistant to N.C. Commissioner of Agriculture Jim Graham. Crone
has consulted in more than 100 North Carolina elections since 1992.
He is a member of the American Association of Political Consultants
and serves as an instructor at the National Campaign Training Seminar
sponsored by Congressional Quarterly and Campaigns & Elections magazine.
He writes a weekly newspaper column and voices a weekly radio commentary.
Fitzsimon is
the director of NC Policy Watch, a joint project of the A.J. Fletcher
Foundation and the North Carolina News Network. Fitzsimon writes
the daily Fitzsimon File and columns about state policy for the
Philanthropy Journal, delivers a daily radio commentary that is
broadcast statewide on the North Carolina News Network, and hosts
"News and Views," a weekly radio news magazine that also
airs on the network stations. He previously served as the spokesman
for the Campaign to Protect America's Lands, a national, nonpartisan
advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., and, before heading
to Washington, he was the founder and executive director of the
Common Sense Foundation in Raleigh, a nonpartisan, nonprofit public
policy foundation whose mission is to expand the policy debate in
North Carolina to include the views and voices of those traditionally
locked out of that debate.
Hood is president
of the John Locke Foundation, a public-policy think tank that examines
state issues from a free-market, limited-government perspective.
He is publisher of Carolina Journal, the Locke Foundation monthly
magazine. An arch-conservative, Hood also writes for Policy Review,
the Heritage Foundation magazine, Triangle Business Journal, Triad
Business News, The Business Journal of Charlotte and dozens of North
Carolina newspapers. His columns are regularly carried by the Burlington
Times-News. He worked previously as a reporter for The New Republic
and on television's "The McLaughlin Group."
Blue is a former
North Carolina Speaker of the House. He was first elected to the
North Carolina House of Representatives in 1980. He is a past president
of the National Conference of State Legislatures and served on the
executive committee of the Southern Legislative Conference. He's
also a founding partner of Thigpen, Blue, Stephens & Fellers, a
law firm in Raleigh.
For more information,
see http:www.ncspin.com.
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