Objectivity, once a prized tenet of journalism, has come under scrutiny in recent years. What does it mean to be objective? Should journalists re-define it? And is objectivity an ideal that journalists should still aspire to? Susanna Siegel and Deborah … Read more
When news organizations cover police statements, why do they do it? This isn’t a trick question. Or it shouldn’t be. In theory, reporters seek police comments to better understand matters of community safety and urgent public concern. Police statements, in … Read more
Whatever happened to values voters? Were they wiped off the face of Earth like dinosaurs? Hitched a ride on unidentified interstellar object Oumuamua, which Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb thinks might be evidence of alien intelligence, and are now on … Read more
Nothing about journalism so engages—and enrages—the public and practitioners as do discussions about whether reporters can be and are objective observers of events they describe. Innumerable studies have set out to chart bias and gather evidence to support or debunk … Read more
[This article originally appeared in the September 1971 issue of Nieman Reports.] …at no time in history has the world needed the professional journalist more. The strident, partisan voices of today’s society contribute heat but no light … Read more
[This article originally appeared in the April 1952 issue of Nieman Reports.] Thomas Jefferson, in a famous letter to Edward Carrington, wrote his much-quoted line, “were it left to me to decide whether we should have government … Read more
[This article originally appeared in the July 1955 issue of Nieman Reports.] …So revolutionary a change in the role of the American citizen was bound to have its effect on American newspapers. For many years we newspapermen … Read more
[This article originally appeared in the March 1968 issue of Nieman Reports.] I would like to address my remarks to the younger journalists—those who will soon be leaving school. You will be the ones who will bear … Read more
[This article originally appeared in the June 1970 issue of Nieman Reports]. …One day when I was with the Washington bureau of The New York Times, our Supreme Court reporter, Anthony Lewis, came in with a story that he thought … Read more