Laura Flanders is the host and executive producer of “The Laura Flanders Show”, which airs on PBS stations nationwide. She is an Izzy-Award winning independent journalist, a New York Times bestselling author and the recipient of the Pat Mitchell Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Media Center.  

In 2001, Laura launched “Your Call” on public radio station KALW and then “The Laura Flanders Show” on Air America Radio to engage listeners in a deep dive into the issues of the day. Supported by Free Speech TV, Laura moved to television in 2008, starting GRITtv, a daily national news show that covered the Financial Crisis from the grassroots up. Laura emerged determined to introduce audiences to a wealth of people, places (and policy options) that other media ignored.

She is at work on a new book, The Grand Perhaps. Her previous books include Blue Grit: Making Impossible, Improbable, and Inspirational Change in America (Penguin Press, 2008); BUSHWOMEN, Tales of a Cynical Species (Verso, 2004); and Real Majority, Media Minority, The High Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting (Common Courage Press, 1997).  

We welcome Laura Flanders back for her third Forum presentation: "The Threat of Right-Wing Paramilitary Training Centers & the Status of Independent Journalism in the US and Around the World".