Geoffrey Cowan is a University Professor and holds the Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, where he served as dean from 1996-2007. Before coming to USC, Cowan served under President Clinton as director of the Voice of America. His books include See No Evil: The Backstage Battle Over Sex and Violence on Television and The People v. Clarence Darrow: The Bribery Trial of America’s Greatest Lawyer. His play about the tension between a free press and government secrecy, Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers (written with the late Leroy Aarons), is in the midst of a national tour of college campuses. (For more on the play, please see www.topsecretplay.org.) Cowan is currently on sabbatical as a Fellow of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

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