CNN commentator Jeff Greenfield will speak at UNLV on May 3 as part of the Barbara Greenspun Lecture Series.

His presentation, "A Political Update with Jeff Greenfield," will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall. The event is free, but tickets are required. Tickets may be picked up at the Performing Arts Center box office at Ham Concert Hall beginning April 24.

Greenfield, the winner of three Emmy awards, joined CNN in 1998 after 14 years as a political and media analyst for ABC.

At CNN he co-hosts the news magazine program Newsstand: CNN and Time with Bernard Shaw and serves as a substitute host for The Larry King Show.

While at ABC, Greenfield became a prominent figure providing coverage from the floors of the political conventions and providing analysis during presidential debates and on election night. He also appeared regularly on Nightline and frequently contributed essays to World News Sunday.

He is a contributing columnist for Time magazine and has written articles for such magazines as The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and National Lampoon.

Greenfield is the author or co-author of nine books, including Television: The First 50 Years, Playing to Win, and The Real Campaign. The motion picture rights to his first novel, The People's Choice, have been purchased by director Penny Marshall. He now is working on his second novel, a satire on big media.

He has been called "the best new political correspondent to appear on television in years," by journalist and author David Halberstam, and the New York Daily News cited him as television's most valuable player for political coverage.

His Emmy awards came for his work on the South Africa specials done by Nightline in 1985 and 1990, and for his work on a prime-time special on Ross Perot in 1992.

The Gary Hart controversy, the Iran/Contra hearings, and the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination fights are among the domestic political stories he has covered. Internationally, he covered the royal wedding in London in 1986 and has traveled to Paris and West Germany for coverage of international diplomacy.

Greenfield spent several years in the political arena, as an aide to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, chief speech writer for New York Mayor John V. Lindsay, and as a colleague of David Garth of Garth Associates Inc., the political and media consultant.

He earned a law degree with honors from Yale Law School and also has a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Wisconsin.

The Barbara Greenspun Lecture Series is sponsored by UNLV's Hank Greenspun School of Communication in honor of Las Vegas Sun publisher Barbara Greenspun. The school is named in honor of her late husband, Sun founder Hank Greenspun.

For additional information, call 895-3801.