Andrea Mitchell does not just report the news -- she also makes it.
The prominent NBC correspondent made headlines herself this summer when she was physically removed from a room after questioning the president of Sudan, who told her there is "no free press" in his country.
Mitchell, NBC's chief foreign affairs correspondent and a Penn trustee, returned to her alma mater Monday night to discuss her recent memoir, Talking Back: To Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels.
"I am so happy to be here on the Penn campus, one of my favorite places," Mitchell, a 1967 College and Wharton graduate, said.
Mitchell's book is a historical account from the perspective of a leading reporter and wife of Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan.
She discussed some of the highlights of her book, including her experiences with the government, the Gulf War, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the current war in Iraq.
"I've been a participant. I've been a target," Mitchell said "I have seen government [from] all sorts of vantage points. I can tell you it doesn't always seem what it is."
Mitchell believes this is a time of "crisis" journalists because of a public mistrust of their credibility.
"It is such an interesting time to be talking about journalism," she said. "We are now so poorly regarded in nearly every hall, maybe even as poorly regarded as politicians."
According to Mitchell, the news media can be faulted for its coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The 9/11 Commission Report "doesn't focus enough on [the media]," Mitchell said. "The bottom line is that we gave too much credibility to the administration's claims of weapons of mass destruction."
She did, however, defend the media's passionate coverage of Hurricane Katrina.
"We knew that the briefings we were being given in Washington and New Orleans and Baton Rouge were not true," Mitchell said.
Despite the flaws she noted, Mitchell still believes in the need for a "viable aand vibrant" free media.
Mitchell also sees a crisis in government, which she attributed to the failures of local, state and national government following Hurricane Katrina.
Mitchell cited the presence of embedded reporters in Iraq as a way in which journalists have affected history, as she believes they have changed America's view of war.
"For the first time the American people got to see the front line of a war. The effect ... was [that] the war seemed too easy, too good."
Students, alumni and Philadelphia residents crowded the bookstore's upper level, listening to Mitchell's comments and waiting to get books signed.
"I've been a big fan for years," co-president of the Penn Alumni Club of Philadelphia David Felderman said.
"It was refreshing to hear her speak openly and honestly about the state of media today," College senior Andrea Scott said. "I'm proud she went to Penn."
