ProPublica will kick off its fall series of events with conversations featuring David Simon, the creator of The Wire and Treme, Bradley Smith, a campaign finance deregulation advocate, and experts on privacy and marketing.

The first event in our second season of Investigate This Tenement Talks, in partnership with the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, will focus on "The Marketing Of the President 2012." The panel will feature ProPublica reporter Lois Beckett who has written extensively about the online targeting efforts of the Obama and Romney campaigns. Joining her will be Kate Kaye,  managing editor of the marketing news site ClickZ.comand Joseph Turow, professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School. Author, journalist, professor and former NPR News & Notes host Farai Chideya will moderate. The conversation will take place at the Tenement Museum (103 Orchard Street at Delancey in Manhattan) on Monday, September 10 at 6:30pm.  Tenement Talks are free and open to the public and will be webcast on U-Stream.

The second event, co-sponsored by HBO and New York University will be "Turning Real Life Into Reel Life" and will feature David Simon, the creator of the acclaimed HBO television series The Wire, his co-creator of the HBO series Treme, Eric Overmyer, and ProPublica reporter A. C. Thompson. Joe Pichirallo, the chair of NYU’s Undergraduate Film & Television program and former film studio executive, film producer and reporter for the Washington Post, will moderate the talk.  The third season of Treme features a new storyline and character based on Thompson and the reporting he did in ourLaw and Disorder series (on crimes committed by the New Orleans Police Department). The trio will talk about the process of fictionalizing real people and events and turning it into a compelling drama. The event will take place at the Cantor Film Center (38 East 8th Street near University Place in Manhattan) on Tuesday, September 18 at 8:30pm and it will also be free, open to the public and broadcast online.

"Dark Money Rises: The Influence of Nonprofits on Campaign 2012," will be the title for October's Investigate This Tenement Talk. Panelists for this event include Bradley Smith, chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics, Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsiblity and Ethics in Washington, Nicholas Confessore, political reporter for the New York Times, and Kim Barker, reporter for ProPublica. Farai Chideya will also moderate this discussion.  Barker's most recent investigation revealed how social welfare nonprofits evade scrutiny of the political work that many of them do. The conversation, which takes place on Tuesday, October 9 at 6:30pm, will focus on how these organizations operate, whether more restrictions need to be placed on them, and whether or not they should have to disclose their donors.

Stay tuned for more information.  We hope you'll come out and join us for each of these events.