From early in the magazine’s history, America’s dilemma—race relations and, in this case, how journalists report stories involving race—has been dissected and debated. Regarded initially in Nieman Reports from the…

It was not until 1952, 14 years after the Nieman Foundation was founded, that the first international Fellows arrived in Cambridge. They were from New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Since…

[This article originally appeared in the June 1968 issue of Nieman Reports.]When the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders blamed white racism for the destructive environment of the ghettos, most…

[This article originally appeared in the January 1956 issue of Nieman Reports.] Millions of words were written about the recent Till murder trial, but the most dramatic and, by far,…

The American press was halfway through the century just ended before journalists began to talk seriously about press responsibility. A letter Henry Luce wrote to Robert Hutchins, President of the…

Savvy newspaper readers know to be on guard when information in stories is attributed to anonymous sources. But what if a news organization relies on an unidentified informant and withholds…

Reporters sometimes devote months, if not years, to working with sources, researching and compiling information to prepare it for publication. Though what their stories reveal can be explosive and damaging…

Reporters often mentioned the roles editors played in how they reported the story or how the story appeared in the paper. At times their input was helpful; other times it…

In most reporting assignments—perhaps most often in journalists’ roles as watchdogs—following leads usually results in finding a key source, someone who can help to build the story’s foundation. How reporters…

Journalists put the public’s trust in peril when they publish stories in which a source has either given false leads or misleading information. Yet some journalists at the conference worried…