Covering Foreign Policy: Journalism and Communications

 Covering Foreign Policy:
Journalism and Communications

Moderator:     Rachel Hoff
                         Director of External Affairs
                         Foreign Policy Initiative

Panelists:        Josh Holly
                         Communications Director
                         House Armed Services Committee

                         Eli Lake
                         National Security Correspondent
                         Washington Times

                         Lee Smith
                         Senior Editor
                        The Weekly Standard

Rachel Hoff has served as the Foreign Policy Initiative’s director of external affairs since 2009. Before joining FPI, she worked on Capitol Hill as legislative assistant and research analyst for Congressman Mac Thornberry (TX-13). Prior to that, she worked at the American Enterprise Institute, conducting research with several prominent foreign policy experts on issues in the Middle East, democracy promotion, anti-terrorism strategies, and weapons nonproliferation. During the 2008 election cycle, Rachel worked at the National Republican Congressional Committee. She holds a BA from Tufts University in Political Science and Philosophy.

Josh Holly currently serves as the communications director for the House Armed Services Committee.  As a key spokesperson for the committee since May 2005, he has a detailed understanding of many of the key national security challenges facing our country, including the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In his role as the communications director, Josh serves as the chief spokesperson for the Armed Services Committee and its Chairman, Congressman Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA).  Josh also directs the committee’s strategic communications and public affairs operations. His duties with the committee have included eight Congressional Delegation fact-finding trips to Iraq and seven trips to Afghanistan. As an experienced communicator in the nation’s capital, Josh has also worked for former Rep. Ernie Fletcher (R-KY), the former Chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee and current Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner (R-OH), and several political campaign organizations, including former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander’s successful 2002 Senate campaign.

Eli Lake is a national security correspondent for the Washington Times and a frequent contributor to Bloggingheads.tv. He joined the Washington Times in 2008. He was previously a national security reporter at the New York Sun and the State Department correspondent for UPI. He is also a contributing editor for The New Republic. Eli is a graduate of Trinity and a native of Philadelphia.

Lee Smith is a senior editor for The Weekly Standard and a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute. Mr. Smith has led an impressive career in writing and publishing. He has worked at a number of journals, magazines, and publishers, including the Hudson Review, the Ecco Press, Atheneum, Grand Street, GQ Magazine, and Talk Magazine. He was also editor-in-chief of the Voice Literary Supplement, the Village Voice's national monthly literary magazine. Mr. Smith has been a guest on radio and television, including Fox News and National Public Radio. He is a prolific writer, contributing articles on Arab and Islamic affairs to, among other publications, the New York Times, the New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Slate.com, the Boston Globe, and Wired. He authored a book on Arab societies, The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations. Mr. Smith has a B.A. from George Washington University, where he received awards in English and Latin. He received the Sage Graduate School Fellowship at Cornell University, and studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo and Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut.