UM’s Mansfield Center Presents ABC Reporter Sam Donaldson

The University of Montana’s Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center will present a conversation with legendary ABC News reporter and journalist Sam Donaldson via ZOOM on Tuesday, April 26.

KGVO News reached out to the Executive Director of the Mansfield Center Deena Mansour who provided background information about the Center and Tuesday’s special guest.

“The Mansfield Center was founded by an act of Congress in 1983 with the dual mission of supporting ethics and public affairs and democracy as well as international engagement,” began Mansour. “So everything we do is to honor that legacy of Mike Mansfield, to foster globally minded leaders of integrity and bring the type of programming that Sam Donaldson exemplifies to support that mission.”

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Mansour said Donaldson was a powerful force in broadcast journalism.

“Sam Donaldson is renowned by as one of the greatest news people of our time,” she said. “When we look at the people that we have representing the Mansfield Center, he is ideal for that. One of the greatest newsmen of Mansfield's time in 1999, referred to Mike Mansfield as the greatest living statesman, and we look for people that honor that role that Mansfield played in our society, and we honor the expectation of the Mansfield Center to support our democracy.”

She highlighted some of Donaldson’s achievements during his many years with ABC News.

“Sam Donaldson covered every presidential administration from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama,” she said. “He covered some really challenging issues, such as the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, Watergate and he really pursued the truth to make sure that people were fully informed so that we could have rational debate in our society.”

Mansour introduced the two moderators of the conversation with Donaldson, both of whom have received numerous awards in journalism

“We have some great partners with us at the Mansfield Center,” she said. “We have Newsy journalist Maritsa Giorgio whose grandfather was a personal friend of Sam Donaldson, so it's actually through Maritsa’s work that Sam is honoring the Mansfield Center with his time, and also a former Missoulian editor Gwen Florio who is an active author right now. Unfortunately, Sam will not be joining us in person but it will be a ZOOM event on Tuesday, April 26^th at 7:00 p.m. People can go to the Mansfield Center website and register to get a ZOOM link.”

Last week, the Mansfield Center presented a conversation via ZOOM that featured former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul that addressed the topics of democracy, bridging the rural-urban divide and Russian aggression in Ukraine.