LEWISTON, Maine -- One of America's most thoughtful social and political observers will speak on "The Media and Its Impact on Civic Discourse and Democratic Practice" on Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m. in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives. The public is invited to attend free of charge.

James Fallows, newly appointed editor of U.S. News & World Report, has commented on a wide range of public policy issues. He assumed stewardship of U.S. News & World Report after 17 years of reporting for The Atlantic Monthly.

His recent book, "Breaking the News: How the Media Undermines Democracy" (Pantheon, 1966), has prompted great controversy. Time Magazine called his treatise a "devastatingly reasonable critique" of the public's jaded response to a press corps increasingly cynical about politics. "By choosing to present public life as a contest among scheming political leaders, all of whom the public should view with suspicion, the press helps bring about that very result," Fallows wrote.

Fallows is also the author of "Looking at the Sun: The Rise of the New East Asian Economic and Political Systems" (Pantheon, 1994) and "More Like Us: Making America Great Again" (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989).

Fallows' talk is the sixth in a Bates College lecture series, "The Quality of Our Civic Life and Discourse."