Alex Janowicz

Stephen Cohen

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The Honorable Steve Cohen

Politician, Congressman for Tennessee's 9th district

Congressman Stephen “Steve” Cohen is a fourth-generation Memphian who has dedicated his life to public service. On issues ranging from civil rights to funding for the arts to women's rights to animal welfare, Cohen was a relentless advocate in the Tennessee State Senate. Congressman Cohen has made it a priority to provide Tennesseans with access to affordable, quality, post-secondary education. Notably, he is a champion of civil rights and justice.

Cohen currently serves on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Committee), and the House Committee on the Judiciary, where he serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties.

The Common Good hosted Cohen on June 24th, 2019: Meet & Greet: Representative Steve Cohen.

Twitter: @RepCohen

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Alex Winter

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Alex Winter

Actor, film director, screenwriter

Alex Winter is a British-American actor, film director and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Bill S. Preston, Esq. in the 1989 film Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and its 1991 sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. However, his acting career dates all the way back to his childhood, when he spent several years performing on Broadway with co-starring roles in The King & I, Peter Pan, and the American premiere of Simon Gray's Close of Play at the Manhattan Theater Club. He then completed NYU film school and went on to have starring roles in several other feature films, including the Warner Brothers smash hit, The Lost Boys and Percy Adlon's Rosalie Goes Shopping.

In 2000, Winter wrote and directed Fever, released by LionsGate Films. In 2013, Winter returned to the screen in Grand Piano, directed by Eugenio Mira. 2013 also saw the release of Winter’s VH1 Rock Doc Downloaded, the story of Napster. The feature documentary premiered at SXSW and earned worldwide critical acclaim at theatrical and festival screenings. Winter’s follow-up, the multiple award-winning documentary Deep Web, had its world premiere in 2015 at SXSW followed by a broadcast premiere in the U.S. on the Epix network alongside a global festival tour.

Winter now has two new documentary features; The Panama Papers for the Epix Network, and Trust Machine for Breaker and Futurism Studios. His current project is titled Zappa; the first all-access documentary on the life and times of Frank Zappa. The Kickstarter campaign for this project was the highest funded documentary in crowdfunding history.

The Common Good hosted Winter on February 12, 2019: Screening and Discussion of The Panama Papers. Moderated by Stephanie Ruhle, Winter spoke alongside Kevin Hall and Robert Friedman at the event.

Twitter: @Winter

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Kevin G. Hall

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Kevin G. Hall

Journalist

Kevin Hall is a senior investigator and chief economics correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers. He shared the 2016 Pulitzer Prize as part of the Panama Papers team, and is a 2010 Pulitzer finalist and Loeb Award winner for reporting on Wall Street and the financial crisis. From 1999 to 2005 Hall was Knight Ridder’s Brazil-based South America bureau chief, and won the Sigma Delta Chi for Best Foreign Correspondence in 2004. Hall was the 2013-14 president of SABEW and co-coordinates its annual Goldschmidt data-immersion fellowship.

The Common Good hosted Hall on February 12, 2019: Screening and Discussion of The Panama Papers. Moderated by Stephanie Ruhle, Hall spoke alongside Alex Winter and Robert Friedman at the event.

Twitter: @KevinGHall

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Nate Silver

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Nate Silver

Statistician, journalist

Nate Silver is an American statistician and writer who analyzes baseball and elections. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight and a Special Correspondent for ABC News.

Silver was named one of The World's 100 Most Influential People by Time in 2009 after an election forecasting system he developed successfully predicted the outcomes in 49 of the 50 states in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. In the 2012 United States presidential election, the forecasting system correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

In 2010, the FiveThirtyEight blog was licensed for publication by The New York Times. In 2012 and 2013, FiveThirtyEight won Webby Awards as the "Best Political Blog" from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. In July 2013, Silver sold FiveThirtyEight to ESPN, and Silver became its Editor in Chief. The ESPN-owned FiveThirtyEight launched on March 17, 2014. The site focused on a broad range of subjects under the rubric of "data journalism".

The Common Good hosted Silver on October 25, 2018 on the "On the Fault Lines: Decision 2018" Midterm Elections Power Panel. He spoke alongside Governor Haley Barbour, David Gergen, Ann Lewis and Gerald Seib, moderated by Gloria Borger.

Twitter: @NateSilver538

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Brian Knappenberger

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Brian Knappenberger

Filmmaker, director

Brian Knappenberger is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, best known for The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists, and his work on Bloomberg Game Changers.

Knappenberger spoke at The Common Good at a Special Screening and Conversation on “Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press”, on July 11, 2017, alongside James Goodale.

Twitter: @knappB

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