How is the rapid increase in Hispanic American population affecting communities? What are the economic, social, cultural and educational benefits and hardships brought about by this significant demographic shift? Will the numbers and force of Hispanic voters alter the nation’s political landscape? The questions to be raised and stories to be told vary as greatly as do people portrayed by the word “Hispanic.” Read more
Reporting on Colombia’s war is extremely dangerous for journalists. For what they publish and broadcast, reporters are threatened and harassed, kidnapped and beaten, driven into exile and murdered. Only in Algeria have more journalists been murdered during recent years in retaliation for the work they do. Read more
Richard C. Harwood teaches journalists strategies for finding valuable new sources. He describes how perspectives of people from various layers of civic life often go untapped by reporters and how, by tapping them, coverage of a community can be … Read more
Lynda McDonnell, political editor for the St. Paul Pioneer-Press and former poverty reporter, finds much “ingenious, committed reporting” on the lives of the poor but also sees “missed opportunities.” Why? As McDonnell writes, “poverty and poor people don’t have … Read more
In a seminar with reporters new to Washington beats, Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, co-authors of “The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect” (Crown Publishers, March 2001), spoke about the ways in … Read more
Robert Jensen, a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, reviews “Drive-By Journalism: The Assault on Your Need to Know,” by Arthur Rowse. Anil Padmanabhan, a 2001 Nieman Fellow and economic affairs editor for Business Standard … Read more
In a series of interviews with staff members of network news, former broadcast executive Av Westin uncovered ways in which racial bias impacts decision-making about the content of news. He published his findings in “Practices for Television Journalists” (Freedom … Read more
Steve Nordlinger, a former reporter and editor at The (Baltimore) Sun, uses a Maryland example to illustrate how the media all but ignore coverage of Congressional races when incumbents run. Read more
Mark Goodman, director of the Student Press Law Center, laments the lessons about journalism and the First Amendment that young people are learning as adults censor what they write. “Professionals who fail to defend student press freedom will have only themselves to blame when young journalists they hire are one day as indifferent to the First Amendment as many working journalists are now to the problems confronted by the high-school press,” Goodman warns. Read more
Our journey into the digital future begins with an essay by Tom Regan, associate editor of The Christian Science Monitor’s Web site. His advice: Remember that technology is changing journalism, “as it always has;” wireless is the next publishing realm, and the Web—as a news distribution method—is (almost) already dead. Read more
