Articles

Teaching Journalism by Adhering to Unchanging Standards

Pages from Gene Graham’s Nieman year sketchbook.Confession: I actually went to journalism school. And now I teach in one. But I’ve also spent plenty of time in newsrooms, a dual…

Falling in Love With Words and How Journalists Use Them

I don’t particularly like thinking about what I might do after I earn my master’s degree in journalism. J-school, for all the work and worry, is more fun than any…

When Mediocrity Beckons

A newsroom for journalism students. Photo courtesy Medill School of Journalism.Most of us know the frustration of desire outpacing ability. But what about coping with the reverse? What happens if…

International Journalists Use Internet Technology to Breach Borders

A journalist in Zimbabwe, researching a story with ties to Sweden, needed to contact an investigative reporter in that Scandinavian country, though he knew no one there. In Montreal, a…

Restoring a Sense of What It Means To Be a Journalist

Most people instinctively want to teach others what they know. And journalists are no exception. It is our job, after all, to share with our readers, viewers and listeners what…

Golf Offers a Window on Our Changing World

Preferred Lies and Other Tales: Skimming the Cream of a Life in SportsJack WhitakerSimon and Schuster. 272 Pages. $24.There is a movie scene that haunts just about every serious sportswriter…

Stitching a Community Together With A Newspaper Staffed by Young Journalists

Brandon Tubbs working as a mentor to a student from the PACERS Cooperative. © Photo courtesy PACERS Photography, Program for Rural Services and Research.Shawn “Sham” Franks, a sophomore at Oakman…

When Numbers Talk, Journalists Help People Listen

Venezuelan reporter Carlos Subero constructed his own databases to analyze politicians’ performances.Swedish reporter Stefan Lisinski exposed questionable practices involving bankrupt companies by using a massive Swedish database of information on…

A Desire to Tell People What They Ought to Know

Salant, CBS, and The Battle for the Soul of American Journalism: The Memoirs of Richard S. SalantCompiled and Edited by Susan and Bill BuzenbergEastview Press. 331 Pages. $27.Dick Salant, the…

Spring 1999: Introduction

In asking young journalists to write about their experiences, what we wanted to provide was a forum in which they could express their views, concerns and ideas about the way…