Water is the essence of life, and its cleanliness, availability, and our use and abuse of it are stories meriting reporters’ and editors’ attention. Yet as Stuart Leavenworth, who covered water issues for The Sacramento Bee and describes the wide array of issues he took on, reports: “To my chagrin, I had the beat largely to myself for four years. Across the country, papers have tackled problems of water pollution and degradation, but have overlooked fundamental issues of supply—and sustainability. This is curious.” – Melissa Ludtke, Editor Read more
Can journalism survive in this era of punditry and attitude? If so, how? Nieman Reports posed this question about journalism’s future to 15 journalists who work in radio and television, at newspapers or with Weblogs, or who teach the … Read more
Many newspapers have decided not to hire a full-time editorial cartoonist, but instead publish the readily available work of syndicated cartoonists. To explore what impact these decisions and other changing circumstances related to editorial cartoons have on journalism, Nieman Reports asked cartoonists, editorial page editors, and close observers of cartooning to write out of their experiences and share their observations about how the long-time role that cartoons have played in journalism and democracy is being affected. – Melissa Ludtke, Editor Read more
Africa is portrayed in the Western media by its extremes, observes Ugandan journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo, a managing editor with the Nation Media Group in Nairobi, Kenya. Stories about its civil wars, human rights abuses, government corruption, disease and poverty abound, but these have been joined by Western reporting that, in Onyango-Obbo’s opinion, can be too willing to celebrate the promised reforms of emergent leaders for whom greater journalistic scrutiny should be applied. The result: “… the leadership in Africa became not only complacent, but also used the flattering international coverage to muzzle internal critics and vigorous independent reporting ….” Read more
Foreign Correspondence While traditional Western foreign correspondents are decreasing in number at many news organizations, their work is not becoming extinct, but is “evolving into new forms,” argue John Maxwell Hamilton, dean of the Manship School of Mass … Read more
War and Terror The dangers and challenges to journalists who report on the war in Iraq have been amply demonstrated in threats to their safety, difficulties of establishing and maintaining trust with Iraqi sources, and restraints … Read more
Watchdog reporting resides at the core of what journalism does. Its roots dig deeply into the common ground uniting the muckrakers’ unearthing of public and private scandals a century ago with what investigative reporters are illuminating today. Though reporting and distribution of this news is very different in the digital era, unfortunately the human conditions requiring press scrutiny are not. These include patterns of corruption and malfeasance among those holding powerful positions of public and private trust. – Melissa Ludtke, Editor Read more
The Bangkok Post managed to avoid Prime Minister Thaksin’s wrath “at a time when less august watchdogs within the Thai press were being systematically silenced,” says Philip J. Cunningham, who writes for the South China Morning Post and other … Read more
War and Terror “Government has no legitimate claim to sole control of secrecy decisions, even on matters of common defense,” Barton Gellman, a Washington Post project reporter observed when he spoke about reporting on stories … Read more
