The online general-interest magazine, Slate, will be recording a political “Gabfest” podcast on Grinnell’s campus on Dec, 7, at 6:00 p.m. The show will focus on the Iowa Caucuses, set to take place on January 3, 2012.

Participating in the roundtable-style discussion will be Slate editor, David Plotz, senior editor Emily Bazelon, and John Dickerson, the magazine’s chief political correspondent.

Sponsored by Grinnell’s Rosenfield Program in Public Affairs, International Relations, and Human Rights, the event is aimed to provide Grinnellians with an intimate look into the world of political news to officially kick off the upcoming election season.
“The Rosenfield Program … is sponsoring the Slate podcast taping as a great way for our campus community to see the media in action,” wrote Associate Professor of History and Director of the Rosenfield Program Sarah Purcell, in an email to the S&B.

Purcell hopes to make the event as accessible to students as possible.

To this end, members of the college community will have the opportunity to attend the live taping and participate in a Q&A session at the event’s conclusion. A more informal conversation with Plotz and Bazelon, geared towards students interested in journalism and politics, is in the works for earlier the same day.

Slate, created in 1996, is published daily online and reports on a variety of topics, ranging from sports to arts to politics. In March, it received a National Magazine Award for Digital Media from the American Society of Magazine Editors for “General Excellence for News and Opinion publications.”

Slate can be read online at www.slate.com