Bob Costas, an NBC sportscaster who attended Syracuse University, will return to campus Friday as a panelist in the first of three panel discussions related to free speech in the media.

The three-part panel discussion will run from 12:45 p.m. to 2 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse III. Costas will open the first session, ‘When Rights Collide: Sports Coverage vs. Branding,’ which will confront issues of increasing restrictions placed on journalists, videographers and photographers who cover sports teams.

The second session, ‘Who’s Censoring the Net?,’ will deal with issues of Internet censorship internationally and in the United States. The third and final panel, ‘Is That Ad Legal?’ will look at deceptive advertising and ways to avoid it.

Barbara Fought, director of the Tully Center for Free Speech, which is hosting the event, said she is looking forward to the center’s first speech seminar.

‘The discussion will certainly help prepare students for a career in communications, sports marketing, advertising and many other fields,’ Fought said.

Costas will also talk to students today at 7 p.m. in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in a question-and-answer format. Costas has asked to speak off the record at the event, requesting that his comments not be recorded or quoted in any coverage, said Lynn Vanderhoek, assistant dean for advancement and external relations, in an e-mail.

‘Because this is an educational forum, Bob would like to be able to speak candidly and off the record with our students,’ Vanderhoek said in the e-mail. ‘We ask students ‘on the honor system’ to refrain from recording this session on cell phones or video cameras, tweeting, blogging, etc.’

Joining Costas at Friday’s three-part panel will be John Keib, president of residential services for the Northeast and national region of Time Warner Cable, and Mickey Osterreicher, general counsel with the National Press Photographers Association.

In the past few years, conflict has developed between different media outlets and the corporations that have paid for the rights to broadcast coverage of sports teams. Costas will address these issues and discuss free speech rights, offering his opinion and suggestions to those looking to break into the business, said David Rubin, former dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

‘This side of the law is completely unsettled because it has not kept up with technology,’ he said.

Rubin, now a professor of First Amendment law at SU, will serve as moderator of the first panel discussion. Rubin said he encourages students to attend all three panels and said that anyone who has an interest in sports, law or technology will benefit from what Costas and the other participants have to say.

Rubin cited examples of how anyone can ‘blog, take pictures, text and twitter even before a sports event has ended,’ potentially conflicting with the rights and interests of the companies who own them.

Alex Klaris, a freshman broadcast journalism major, plans to attend Costas’ session because of his prominence in the sports broadcasting industry.

‘I’m looking forward to hearing some of the insights and experiences he has gained over the course of his accomplished career,’ Klaris said.

Born in Queens and raised in Commack, Long Island, Costas left Newhouse in 1974 to start his broadcasting career at the WSYR-TV and Radio station in Syracuse, N.Y. He then moved to NBC as a sportscaster and currently hosts NBC’s ‘Football Night in America.’

Algree03@syr.edu

Published on September 30, 2009 at 12:00 pm