The College of Charleston Friends of the Library hosted a lecture by Jon Meacham, presidential historian, contributing editor at Time and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, on Tuesday, October 30, 2012. Known as a skilled raconteur and an eloquent speaker with a depth of knowledge about history, politics and religion, Meacham is one of America's most prominent public intellectuals and understands how issues and events impact our lives. Meacham's appearance is part of the Friends of the Library Addlestone Authors' Series.

Meacham's keynote address was entitled "The Media's Secret Bias: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Truth about the News."

For some, the key to understanding the media is ideology -- that outlets are driven by politics rather than objectivity. There is much truth to this, and the 21st century is now more like the 18th and 19th in terms of partisan news. But there's an even more fundamental point Americans should grasp: that many journalists are driven as much by conflict as by creeds. Jon Meacham brings renewed perspective to the issue of media bias, grounded in historical analysis and his own life's work with print and television news media outlets. Meacham cuts to the core of media bias, explaining how politics and human nature shape the news you see and read.

Mr. Meacham's New York Time bestseller, American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 2009 and was cited as an "unlikely portrait of a not always admirable democrat, but a pivotal president, written with an agile prose that brings the Jackson saga to life. His biography, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, is scheduled for a November 13, 2012 release. He is also working on a biography of President George H.W. Bush.

His other New York Times bestsellers include Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, which explored the fascinating relationship between the two great leaders who piloted the free world to victory in World War II, and American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. As executive vice president and executive editor at the Random House Publishing Group, Mr. Meacham currently is editing a book by Al Gore and a series of e-books published by Politico on the 2012 presidential campaign. Mr. Meacham is a regular guest on Morning Joe and has appeared on such programs as Charlie Rose, Meet The Press, The O'Reilly Factor and The Colbert Report. After serving as managing editor of Newsweek for eight years, Mr. Meacham was responsible for all day-to-day editorial operations of the magazine as editor from 2006 to 2010. The New York Times called him "one of the most influential editors in the news magazine business."