As I sit down to write this the United States is considering new military strikes against Iraq, Pope John Paul II is calling for freedom in Cuba, and the country is obsessed with the question of whether or not President … Read more
Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney responds to questions front the media while taking part in a press conference held by U.S. and Saudi Arabian officials during Operation Desert Storm. Official U.S. Navy photo. The … Read more
My first reaction to the assignment of writing about the lingering effects of Cold War self-censorship is to redefine the subject. If self-censorship means restraint, self-imposed or accepted by an individual journalist, I would consider that this is today only … Read more
My departure point for any discussion of national security reporting is an evening in the early 1980’s, when I was a Washington correspondent for The New York Times. Several days earlier, I had been handed a heavily classified memorandum to … Read more
It was, yet again,another "defining" moment for on-line media. Most of the early details of the alleged affair between President Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky had emerged on the Web. Between Matt Drudge’s Drudge Report and News-week’s AOL … Read more
Harry S. Ashmore 1916-1998In April 1960, The New York Herald Tribune published 12 articles by Harry S. Ashmore, who had just left The Arkansas Gazette where he had served for 12 … Read more
He was young, but he knew it was the kind of story that could change lives and win prizes so he didn’t hesitate when his editors asked him to spend two months living in a crack-infested community. Years later, Fernando … Read more
The first paper on four areas of watchdog journalism concerns the economic sector. As these cartoons show, some issues that disturb the country have not changed in the last century—fear of inflation, immigration and taxes. Read more
It was a coin toss as to which provoked more contempt in my youth, authority or celebrity. Fred Friendly combined them both, though his celebrity was of the professional, behind-the-scenes sort. He was the radio and television producer behind the … Read more
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 the horrors of plantation life, … Read more
