Our featured guest today is Steve Farnsworth. Steve teaches courses in political communication and journalism at George Mason University. He is the author or co-author of four books, including Spinner in Chief: How Presidents Sell Their Policies and Themselves (Paradigm Press) and The Nightly News Nightmare: Media Coverage of U.S. Presidential Elections, 1988-2008 (Rowman & Littlefield, third edition). http://www.amazon.com/Spinner-Chief-Presidents-Policies-Themselves/dp/15...

Steve was a Canada-U.S. Fulbright Research Scholar at McGill University in Montreal and worked for ten years as a daily newspaper journalist before becoming an academic, mostly with the Kansas City Star & Times. sfarnswo@gmu.edu

We will also hear from J. David Gray – our resident scribe – for another segment of our SYNERGY project. My image “night stalker” inspired David’s essay. be sure to view the image at http://tinyurl.com/lvgvsr or http://www.jimlynchphotography.com in the new images gallery. David’s other writings can be found at http://word-smith.typepad.com/wordsmith

Music today from The Neville Brothers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Brothers http://www.nevilles.com/