The United States National Security Council (NSC) is the principal forum used by the president of the United States for consideration of national security, military, and foreign policy matters. Based in the White House, it is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, and composed of senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials.
James Phillip Rubin is an American former diplomat and journalist who served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs in the Clinton Administration from 1997–2000. He wrote a regular column on foreign affairs for The Sunday Times of London, and is currently Diplomatic Counselor to the newly elected Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) is a graduate school of Johns Hopkins University based in Washington, D.C. with campuses in Bologna, Italy and Nanjing, China.
Rebecca MacKinnon is an author, researcher, Internet freedom advocate, and co-founder of the citizen media network Global Voices. She is notable as a former CNN journalist who headed the CNN bureaus in Beijing and later in Tokyo. She is on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a founding board member of the Global Network Initiative the founding director of the Ranking Digital Rights project at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, and is the Vice President for Global Advocacy at the Wikimedia Foundation.
Salvatore Antonio "Tony" Fratto was deputy assistant and deputy press secretary to former United States President George W. Bush.
Lieutenant-General Talat MasoodHI(M) SBt is a retired three-star rank army general, a political commentator, and a mechanical engineer.
The Stimson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that analyzes issues related to global peace. It is named after the American lawyer and politician Henry L. Stimson.
John Sitilides is a Washington, D.C. geopolitical strategist and diplomacy consultant to the U.S. Department of State.
Philippe I. Reines is an American political consultant. He joined the Department of State as a senior advisor to Hillary Clinton when she became United States Secretary of State in January 2009, and was promoted to deputy assistant secretary of state for strategic communications in 2010.
Sandra Buckler is a former director of communications for the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada under Conservative Party of Canada Prime Minister Stephen Harper. She was appointed in 2006 and resigned from her position on June 26, 2008. Her tenure was contentious, including charges from the national media that she was overly restricted in sharing information, pressing journalists to instead focus on photo ops and adhering rigorously to talking points from the Office of the Prime Minister (PMO), as well as accusations from Members of Parliament that she had bullied them, and charges of conflict of interest. She joined Canadian Tire as Vice President of communications in 2015.
Anita Dunn is an American political strategist serving as a senior advisor to U.S. President Joe Biden, having originally held the post from January 20, 2021, to August 12, 2021, and returning May 5, 2022.
In international relations, the term smart power refers to the combination of hard power and soft power strategies. It is defined by the Center for Strategic and International Studies as "an approach that underscores the necessity of a strong military, but also invests heavily in alliances, partnerships, and institutions of all levels to expand one's influence and establish legitimacy of one's action."
Allan Chernoff is a writer and owner of Chernoff Communications, a strategic media communications firm. He is the author with Rena Margulies Chernoff of The Tailors of Tomaszow, a communal memoir and history of Holocaust survivors from Tomaszow-Mazowiecki, Poland. He was CNN's senior correspondent in New York for 11 years specializing in finance and business. Before joining CNN, Chernoff was senior correspondent at CNBC. Chernoff was also a senior partner with Fleishman-Hillard.
The Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism is an annual event held at Tufts University. It is sponsored by the Film and Media Studies Program (FMS) at Tufts University, the Edward R. Murrow Center for the Advancement of Public Diplomacy, and the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service. Dedicated to illuminating aspects of the many contributions Edward R. Murrow made to journalism and public diplomacy, the Forum brings together interdisciplinary panels to reflect on Murrow’s legacy and relate it to contemporary issues in journalism. The Forum debuted in 2006 with former Nightline host Ted Koppel serving as the keynote speaker and moderator examining the contemporary state of the news business. In 2007 retired CBS News anchor Dan Rather led a panel discussing the coverage of war and conflicts. In 2008 former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw and panelists explored the current state of political coverage. The 2009 panel was headlined by MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews, along with former Massachusetts Governor and 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael S. Dukakis, and Janet Wu, WCVB-TV’s political reporter discussing the press’ role in encouraging or discouraging people from seeking public office. In 2010 panelists Casey Murrow, author Lynne Olson, and producer/Massachusetts ACLU Vice President Arnie Reisman discussed Murrow and his efforts to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy after the blacklist and the contemporary state of blacklisting, self-censorship, and political redlines for the media. In 2011 panelists Katie Couric and Jonathan Tisch discussed Couric's career as well as the state of journalism in a social media and technology-driven world. In 2012 panelists Brian Williams and Jonathan Tisch discussed Williams's career and tactics, opportunities, and challenges of covering campaigns in 2012. The 2013 forum featured Christiane Amanpour discussing the evolving role of foreign correspondents, while Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington examined the changing face of journalism in the digital age for the 2014 forum. In 2015, ABC News' Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos discussed reliability in the 24-hour news cycle.
The Glover Park Group was an American communications consulting firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. The company was founded in 2001 by former White House and Democratic campaign officials Carter Eskew, Michael Feldman, Joe Lockhart and Chip Smith. In January 2021, the firm merged with Finsbury and Hering Schuppener to form Finsbury Glover Hering, which itself later merged in December 2021 with New York City-based Sard Verbinnen & Co to form FGS Global.
Purple Strategies is an American communications firm headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia and founded in 2008. The name Purple Strategies reflects the company's bipartisan blend of strategists from both "blue" and "red" political backgrounds. Purple Strategies also operates a subsidiary, a reputation management firm Citizen2.
Maria Teresa Cardona is an American political strategist and commentator who currently works at the Dewey Square Group and is the founder of Latinovations. Cardona is also a Democratic strategist and CNN/CNN en Español political commentator. Starting in 2020 Maria spearheads ¡MARIA! with Maria Cardona talk show. She dissects advocacy and public policy affecting Latinos in the U.S. through the El Rey Network.
Angela Rye is the Principal and CEO of IMPACT Strategies, a political advocacy firm formerly based in Washington, DC. She is a special correspondent on ESPN.
Hélène Papper is the Global Communications and Advocacy Director for the UN specialized agency and international financial institution, IFAD, the International Fund for Agricultural Development. She came on board after leading the United Nations Information Centre in Bogota, for Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela for four years. Prior to this appointment of 4 March 2016 by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, she was the Founder and Chief of MikadoFm, the national peacekeeping radio for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).
Alyssa Farah Griffin is an American political strategist and television personality. She was the White House Director of Strategic Communications and Assistant to the President in 2020 during the presidency of Donald Trump. She is a co-host of the daytime talk show The View and also appears on CNN as a political commentator.
