'The Ethicist' to speak at CNU on 'How to Be Good'

News Release - Oct. 9, 2006

Public's Contact for publication:
Kevin Hughes
Director of the Center for Honor Enrichment and Community Standards at CNU
(757) 594-7190

Media Contact:
Karen L. Gill
Office of Communications and Public Relations
(757) 594-8428

(NEWPORT NEWS, Va.) — Four-time Emmy-Award winner and author of the New York Times Magazine column “The Ethicist” will speak at Christopher Newport University on Nov. 14.

Randy Cohen, who also wrote the book “The Good, the Bad, and the Difference,” will speak on “How to Be Good,” at 7 p.m. on Nov. 14 in the Concert Hall of the Ferguson Center for the Arts. His presentation is free and open to the public.

In his talk, “How to Be Good,” Cohen lays out the approach he takes, and discusses those taken by other people, in sorting through the ethical quandaries of ordinary experience.

In addition, he will recount his unlikely history as an ethicist and make a case that his background as a writer for David Letterman was excellent training for his current occupation. During the question and answer period following his remarks, Cohen will field ethical queries from the audience.

For more information, contact Kevin Hughes, director of the Center for Honor Enrichment and Community Standards at CNU, at (757) 594-7190.

More about Randy Cohen
Born in Charleston, S.C., Cohen attended graduate school at the California Institute of the Arts as a music major studying composition. His first professional work was writing humor pieces, essays, and stories for newspapers and magazines such as The New Yorker, Harpers, the Atlantic and Young Love Comics. A collection of these pieces, "Diary of a Flying Man," was published by Knopf. For several years, he wrote “The News Quiz,” a regular column of topical comedy for Slate, the online magazine.

His first television work was writing for “Late Night With David Letterman,” for which he won three Emmy awards. He fourth Emmy was for his work on Michael Moore’s “TV Nation.” He was the original head writer on the “The Rosie O'Donnell Show.”

For more information on Cohen, go to www.wolfmanproductions.com/cohen.html. Listen to recent columns at National Public Radio.