[This article originally appeared in the Summer 1986 issue of Nieman Reports.] For whom do reporters write? For the readers? Well, yes and no. After two years inside a daily newspaper, I have concluded that among the hundreds of stories … Read more
[This article originally appeared in the Spring 1980 issue of Nieman Reports.] Martin Chuzzlewit, the hero of Dickens’s novel of that name, sails to the United States on a packet boat. As the boat reaches New York harbor, it is … Read more
Parents assist children in a fourth grade math class. Photo by Bill Batson, The Omaha World-Herald. [This article originally appeared in the Spring 1999 issue of Nieman Reports.] For at least a … 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 without newspapers, or … 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 had given the … 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 the responsibility of … 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
From the 1940’s through the 1990’s, technological innovation in electronic media has tugged print journalism into unaccustomed realms of news reporting. During earlier decades, this tug came most strongly from television. Today it arises out of the proliferation of cable … Read more
[This article originally appeared in the December 1970 issue of Nieman Reports.] …Those who would improve our practices in questionable ways come not only from the outside in the form of powerful politicians. Some come from the inside. Militant young … Read more
[This article originally appeared in the September 1971 issue of Nieman Reports.] Can white reporters accurately report events that involve blacks and other minority groups? This question—and the related topic of whether reporting can or should be “objective”— was … Read more