EDITORS — See previous press release at www.FresnoStateNews.com. Pauline Lubens replaces David Hackworth who is unable to participate due to illness. Full event schedule to come.

MEDlA AVAILABILITY INFO: Due to the tight travel schedules and news demands on the journalists participating in the symposium, speakers will be available for media interviews on a limited basis. If you are interested in interviewing any of the speakers, please notify Tom Uribes in advance and a schedule will be developed as speakers check in and provide their updated travel plans for that day. Additional media instructions will be forthcoming.

Pauline Lubens, a San Jose Mercury News photojournalist who covers the Iraq war, has joined the roster of distinguished journalists participating in the first Roger Tatarian Symposium in Journalism — “Covering the War after the War” — March 5 at California State University, Fresno.

The symposium, which will focus on media coverage of the conflict in Iraq, features two main speakers: Pulitzer Prize winning journalists Chris Hedges, a New York Times war correspondent, and Seymour Hersh, a free-lance writer and regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters.

The event, from 9 a.m. until noon at the Satellite Student Union (2485 E. San Ramon Ave.) on the university campus, is sponsored by the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism and the Roger Tatarian Endowment for Journalism.

It will examine how well the media has covered the Iraq conflict since the fall of Baghdad about a year ago and other related issues about the Iraq war, said Tommy Miller, the Roger Tatarian Chair in Journalism and coordinator for the conference.

The endowment honors Tatarian, the late Fresno State journalism professor, who was once editor-in-chief of United Press International.

Ludens joins a panel discussion that includes Kevin Diaz, a reporter with the McClatchy newspapers bureau in Washington who was assigned to Qatar in the Middle East and filed stories for all McClatchy newspapers; and James Hattori, a reporter with NBC news in San Francisco. Hattori recently covered the conflict in Iraq.

Lubens, who has been with the Mercury News for about four years, was assigned to Bahrain last year before the war started.

After the war started, she went into Iraq for about four weeks. She will be returning there in mid-May for more photo coverage for the Mercury News.

During the war she was one of the unilateral journalists covering the conflict independently of the military. Her work focused on the impact of the war on Iraqi civilians.

Lubens was a Pulitzer finalist in 1991 for a team entry documenting the U.S. visit of South African leader Nelson Mandela and has twice won awards for feature picture stories in the annual National Press Photographers Association’s Pictures of the Year contest.

See full bio of Lubens and all symposium speakers at www.FresnoStateNews.com.

The symposium is free and open to the public. Parking is available In Lots J, P and 0 (access from Barstow and Maple Ayes.).

For more information about conference, call Miller at (559) 278-2087. See updates at www.FresnoStateNews.com. For media coverage, contact Tom Uribes at 278-5366.

EDITORS and NEWS/PUBLIC AFFAIRS DIRECTORS: Press releases can be downloaded at www.fresnostatenews.com. University Relations also provides releases for news media companies via e-mail. To be added to the d/stribut/on list, send your e-mail address to tomu@csufresno.edu.