The dizzying whirl of spin and counterspin which marked the months of coverage of President Clinton’s sex life has now come to an end. It’s time to ask what we’ve learned about journalism today. The results of the grand jury … Read more
Reporting on crime and violence has been a staple in the newspaper diet since before the pennycress. In that time, one by-product of this coverage has remained consistent: readers have been presented with distorted picture of the world. For example, … Read more
In 1995, Jane Ellen Stevens, a science writer, embarked on a collaborative project with Dr. Lori Dorfman, Director of the Berkeley Media Studies Group, a public health research organization, and Dr. Esther Thorson, a statistician and Associate Dean at the … Read more
Youngster at Wayne County Juvenile Justice Center in Detroit. Photo by Pauline Lubens/The Detroit Free Press. In ancient times, a coin was flipped to assist people in important decisions of life. It was … Read more
In the end, the Nieman year is always about people. The people who share that magical title of “fellow,” and those whom we meet along the route of our nine-month carriage ride through Harvard. It is about connections and conversations … Read more
Imaging Education: the Media and Schools in America Edited by Gene I. Maeroff Teachers College Press. 240 Pages. $50 hc, $23.95 pb.In the winter 1997 edition of Nieman Reports, I issued … Read more
The Philippine press is considered by many the liveliest, the most confrontational and even the wildest in Asia. Get out of it for a year, as I did in 1987 for my Nieman year, and you realize that 365 issues … Read more
“I think a strong argument can be made that the residents of [poorer] areas are severely disadvantaged—as citizens, as workers, as consumers—by the lack of serious coverage from television and the lack of local coverage of their neighborhoods by newspapers,” said Maxwell King former Editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The reason, of course, is that the media, regardless of their claims of serving all the people, aim for the affluent, the audience that advertisers seek. It would seem, then, that if newspapers want to expand readership they would be worried about the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Read more
Imaging Education: the Media and Schools in America Edited by Gene I. Maeroff Teachers College Press. 240 Pages. $50 hc, $23.95 pb.In the winter 1997 edition of Nieman Reports, I issued … Read more
After years of self-satisfied isolation, Indonesia finds itself exposed on the world’s financial pages and, occasionally, on front pages. The last time journalists paid so much attention to this immense, complex and fascinating country was 30 years ago when blood … Read more
