Farai Chideya is a journalist and author. In 1997, Newsweek named her to its Century Club of 100 people to watch in the year 2000. Chideya runs the website Pop & Politics (www.popandpolitics.com) -- news and commentary which reflects America's diversity and then reaches out to a wider international audience. The site includes her column for the Tribune media syndicate which is published in newspapers across the country. Chideya currently does political commentary for CNN, MSNBC and BET News. She recently anchored Pure Oxygen, the prime time show on the Oxygen women's network started by Oprah Winfrey, Gerry Laybourne and Marcy Carsey.

	From 1997 to 1999, Chideya was an ABC News correspondent covering a range of issues from youth to race to politics. In 1996, Chideya spent the Presidential election season as a CNN Political Analyst and was named to the New York Daily News' Dream Team of political reporters and commentators. Chideya's stereotype-shattering 1995 book, Don't Believe the Hype: Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African-Americans (Plume Penguin), is now in its eighth printing. Using statistics, she systematically undercuts the argument that African-Americans are at the root of problems like crime, welfare and drugs. In 1999, William Morrow published her second book, The Color of Our Future. From an Indian reservation to South Central L.A., from the 99% white heartland to multi-racial Southern California, Chideya interviews and analyzes the lives of today's diverse teens and twenty-somethings.

	From 1994-96 she was a writer at MTV News, and from 1990 to 1994 she reported for Newsweek magazine in New York, Chicago and Washington, where her political coverage ranged from labor issues to following the President as a pool reporter on Air Force One. In 1996, Chideya completed a Freedom Forum Media Studies Center fellowship, examining why young Americans are tuning out the news. Chideya has profiled white supremacists for Mademoiselle, examined child sexual abuse allegations for the Los Angeles Times, and written on affirmative action for The New York Times. Honors include winning a National Education Reporting award, a WIN Young Women of Achievement award and a GLAAD Award.