Paul Burka and Eileen Smith will be dicussing politics with traditional and new media on Wednesday, Oct. 22 at 3:30 p.m. at Alkek 250.

Paul Burka has been apart of Texas Monthly staff one year after the magazine’s founding. He writes several features on politics.

Burka is a member of the State Bar of Texas and spent five years as an attorney with the Texas Legislature, where he served as counsel to the Senate Natural Resources Committee.

Burka won a National Magazine award for reporting excellence in 1985 and the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award. He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and teaches at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a frequent guest discussing politics on national news programs on MSNBC, Fox, NBC, and CNN.

Eileen Smith is an editor of Texas Monthly and writes Stripping the ’08 Election Bare – Poll Dancing where she discusses the candidates and election. She wrote a piece in the February edition, MEET the DePRESSED, telling how print is dead.

Both Burka and Smith discuss and debate the latest news on the elections as well.