If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from covering the 2016 presidential election, it’s that the best stories can and should come from unexpected places. I take that literally: when I file radio stories for NPR these days, I’m usually … Read more
The beat down of the mainstream media in recent years has been painful to watch, if for no other reason than research shows much of it is preventable. At the root of the disintegration of the image of American media … Read more
The story that has dominated coverage of Muslims in America this past year, especially these past few months, has been the rise of Islamophobia and how President Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric is affecting the American Muslim community. (This is followed closely … Read more
Since its founding, Twitter has always lost money—more than $2 billion since 2011 alone. Oddly enough, Twitter now faces the same problem as newsrooms did back in the day when RSS first arrived on the scene. Once … Read more
Asked about his hopes for 2017 by a weekly newspaper, Buffalo, N.Y. school board member Carl Paladino said last month he hoped First Lady Michelle Obama would “return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe … Read more
A discussion of journalistic ethics is supposed to involve journalism, so maybe I’m on thin ice writing about BuzzFeed’s decision to publish the dossier about Donald Trump – because that decision had nothing to do with journalism. Read more
James Comey’s reputation may never recover from a few decisions he made during the 2016 election cycle, and maybe it shouldn’t. His choices, though, weren’t materially different from the thinking used by most major media outlets to write stories based … Read more
Donald Trump poses a challenge to all media, because he, well, loathes us and also can’t live without us. In everyday terms, his badgering media for attention and simultaneously calling it “scum” would earn him an order of protection for … Read more
Donald Trump’s precedent-breaking refusal to allow a small pool of journalists to cover his travels as president-elect has revealed some common ground in our otherwise fractured republic. Good, Trump supporters tell me. The press deserves to be treated badly after … Read more
From 1980 through 2008, when I was editor of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, most presidential candidacies began long before the campaign went national. From fringe to favorite, candidates came to New Hampshire and visited Rotary Clubs, town halls, and living … Read more