Author

The Ups and Downs of Two Pioneering Magazines

TelQuel (“As It Is”), the French-language weekly I founded in 2001, has been the best-selling newsmagazine in Morocco since 2004. Time magazine mentioned its history of “breaking press taboos,” The Guardian commended its “brave, pushy…

Morocco and Press Freedom: A Complicated Relationship

A visibly corrupt government but a wide space for journalists to denounce it, relentlessly harassed newspapers but still a vivid, daring and popular press—welcome to the kingdom of paradox.

Stories His Images Told: Charles Moore

Charles Moore’s photographs shocked a nation by pricking its conscience. In the early 1960’s, Life magazine carried into millions of American homes his unforgettable images of white lawmen wielding clubs…

Familiar Patterns of Minority Exclusion Follow Mainstream Media Online

‘The parallels between the legacies and online media are as stark as they are disheartening.’

Roi Ottley: An African-American Journalist Covers World War II

Old World War II movies usually included the standard cliché of a United States Army unit serving as a microcosm of American diversity. As the soldiers trudged along muddy roads…

To Be a ‘Negro’ Newsman—Reporting on the Emmett Till Murder Trial

In 1956, Nieman Reports published Simeon Booker’s account of his Jet magazine coverage of the Emmett Till trial: Millions of words were written about the recent Till murder trial, but the most…

The Bonds of Our Reporting: The Civil Rights Cold Case Project

Cold case reporting is one of those endeavors that require friendly, trustworthy support and collaboration. This can be hard to find on back roads while chasing stories that some people…

It Takes a Hard-Driving Team to Uncover the Truth of a Cold Case

‘… Thomas Moore and I became an indivisible army of two on the [Henry H.] Dee and [Charles E.] Moore case. We created a critical mass of trust that carried…
Who Killed Frank Morris?

Who Killed Frank Morris?

Hearing of a racial murder that happened 43 years earlier, a reporter starts digging. Four years and more than 150 stories later, a grand jury was convened.

The Enduring Ambition of the Civil Rights Cold Case Project

‘What I didn’t know going in was how inspired I’d feel by hearing these journalists share fragments from their work that spoke to why telling these stories mattered to them—and…