Articles

Types of Nonprofits

A Dozen Tips for Stories About Nonprofits

A dozen story suggestions from editors, reporters and nonprofit leaders:Nonproflts that deliver. Gather information on all major nonprofits serving your area, and compare the amount of resources they devote to…

Response: Help Is Available

I start with a point from Richard Parker’s discussion of needed improvements in journalism education and apply it more broadly.Parker argues that "fundamental democratic political concerns" should provide the context…

Is Anything Really Wrong?

Some years ago The New York Times editorial page expressed the complacent notion that "great publications magnify the voice of any single writer." The statement is misleading. The instruments of…

Response: Demystify the Subject

Once upon a time I thought, along with Richard Parker, that "watchdog" journalism equaled "muckraking," which would lead to "making America better." Indeed, when Richard recruited me to help him…

Spring 1998: Nonprofits Introduction

Francis Warm shows copy of records the Nazis kept of their pillaging of art from his great-uncle’s estate in France. Many of the paintings are now in museums. Boston Globe…

Not Black, Not White, It’s American History

Somewhere back there, someone decided that rather than jump off a slave ship and kill themselves, they saw a future. Rather than give up and die and not deal with…

Response: Avoid Close Relations

The local head of a nationally recognized charity earns nearly $200,000 a year, travels the globe at the nonprofit’s expense and receives a new car of the model of his…

Response: What’s Often Missing Is Desire

Joyce Purnick speaks for many a metro and state editor when she describes the strain of keeping up with the news while watching for the big stories. At a midsize…

Response: It’s Easier to Be Passive

When I was teaching journalism—communication, as most educators prefer nowadays—the authors of a widely used introductory textbook insisted that part of the media’s mission is the "transference of culture." Meaning,…