Nieman Reports

Fall 2011

Cold Case Reporting

Cases unheard. Justice denied. These words fit many crimes committed with racial intent a half century ago. Now reporters burrow into forgotten files, locate witnesses, track down suspects, publish what they find—and write for us about their work that in some cases is resulting in justice finally being served. Journalists then explore how stories about black America are told today. Next, our focus turns to news reporting in a time of revolutionary change in Arab nations. Intriguing essays then transport us from Iran to Indonesia, from financial collapse to consensus building, from envisioning computers replacing journalists to reporting from war’s frontlines.

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Cold Case Reporting: Revisiting Racial Crimes

Here’s What People Want to Know: Why Do Journalists Tell These Stories?

By Hank Klibanoff• Diversity• September 12, 2011

Why is what happened then considered news today? Why stir up memories of events that were long ago put to rest? Hank Klibanoff, author of “The Race Beat” and managing editor of the Civil Rights Cold Case Project, leads off our collection of stories by writing about how people want to know what compels journalists to dig into racial crimes from a distant era. Others involved with this project—and two reporters who covered the civil rights movement—write about the importance of not forgetting. Read more

The Enduring Ambition of the Civil Rights Cold Case Project

By Robert J. Rosenthal• Features• September 7, 2011

‘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 should matter to all of us.’ Read more

Revealing Sex Crimes Against Black Women

By Jan Gardner• Diversity• September 9, 2011

Before Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, she had already been fighting for racial equality for more than a decade. She strategized with other activists, organized protests, and in 1948 gave an impassioned speech … Read more

Who Killed Frank Morris?

By Stanley Nelson• Opinion• September 7, 2011

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. Read more

When Lawyers and Journalists Share Common Cause

By Janis L. McDonald and Paula C. Johnson• Diversity• September 9, 2011

‘Our dual approaches keep steady attention fixed on the [Frank] Morris case and they pressure local and federal law enforcement to thoroughly investigate it, with a spillover effect of bringing renewed attention to other cold cases …’ Read more

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

By David Ridgen• Features• September 7, 2011

‘… 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 and insulated us.’ Read more

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

By David Ridgen• Features• September 7, 2011

RELATED ARTICLE “It Takes a Hard-Driving Team to Uncover the Truth of a Cold Case” – David RidgenCold case reporting is one of … Read more

The Case of the Supposedly Sealed Files—And What They Revealed

By Jerry Mitchell• Diversity• September 9, 2011

‘I continue to pore through 40,000 pages of FBI records, the entire FBI case file in the Klan’s 1964 killings of [James] Chaney, [Andrew] Goodman and [Michael] Schwerner. Two suspects are still alive …’ Read more

Compelled to Remember What Others Want to Forget

By John Fleming• Opinion• September 9, 2011

‘… I realize that the way forward is through doing what we do best. We tell stories. We are journalists. And if we, as journalists, don’t tell these forgotten stories, who will?’ Read more

A Father’s Life Tugs His Son to Revisit Unsolved Crimes

By Ben Greenberg• Diversity• September 14, 2011

‘More and more I was looking not just at my father’s story but also at the unfinished business of the civil rights movement.’ Read more

Being There to See—With the Challenge of Being Heard

By Simeon Booker• Diversity• September 15, 2011

‘I learned quickly that for a black reporter to cover a civil rights story in the Deep South and live to tell about it, I had to blend in.’ Read more

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

By Simeon Booker• Diversity• September 7, 2011

Simeon Booker, center, covers the Emmett Till murder trial for Jet magazine. He is seated in the Negro press section with, from left, Clotye Murdock of Ebony magazine, L. Alex Wilson of The … Read more

Six Decades of Watching Mississippi—Starting in 1947

By Wilson F. “Bill” Minor• Diversity• October 13, 2011

‘Late in 1977, we started to tackle the comeback of the [Ku Klux Klan] in Mississippi. In response, a cross wrapped in kerosene-soaked rags was set ablaze just past midnight outside our building.’ Read more

Stories His Images Told: Charles Moore

By Jan Gardner• Visual Journalism• September 8, 2011

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 over black demonstrators. His … Read more

Reporting on Black America: Who Tells the Stories

Carl Sandburg’s Reporting Foretold the Chicago Race Riots of 1919

By Cameron McWhirter• Diversity• September 13, 2011

“Diversity fatigue has been alive and well in America's news industry for many years,” writes Milton Coleman, a senior editor at The Washington Post and an organizer of Leadership in Diversity: New Models for Growing Audience, Talent and Revenues, a two-part conference taking place this year. Racial practices in newsrooms disquiet blacks, but discussions about them surface mostly among minority journalists. As black journalists leave mainstream news organizations for websites, issues of financial viability, resources for reporting, and their site’s impact follow them. Read more

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

By Cameron McWhirter• Diversity• September 7, 2011

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 or charged Nazi foxholes, viewers … Read more

Diversity in Newsrooms: Fresh Strategies, New Goals

By Milton Coleman• Diversity• September 13, 2011

What Often Goes Unsaid

By Amy Alexander• Diversity• October 3, 2011

The racial dynamic of what happens inside a newsroom is ‘an elusive if contentious subject that seldom rises to become a topic of media forums or workshops—except when minority journalists come together to talk.’ Read more

Familiar Patterns of Minority Exclusion Follow Mainstream Media Online

By Jean Marie Brown• Diversity• September 7, 2011

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

Black Journalism Takes Root in Contemporary Times

By Jack E. White• Diversity• September 9, 2011

When Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and The Washington Post Company CEO Donald Graham launched The Root in 2008, their ambitions were anything but modest. “We wanted to create a daily black national—indeed, international—magazine, a medium on … Read more

Arab News: Troubles and Possibilities

Arab Media: Rebuilding Trust With Their Public

By Rami G. Khouri• International Journalism• September 13, 2011

Knowing where you are coming from helps in charting where you want to go. The Arab mass media, like many other sectors of society, need to gauge how to take advantage of the Arab awakening that continues to challenge and … Read more

In Jordan, Some Threats Against a Foreign Journalist Are Realized

By Randa Habib• International Journalism• September 9, 2011

After the Arab Spring, media restrictions tighten in ways unprecedented in Randa Habib’s 24 years as Agence France-Press bureau chief in Amman, and her life is threatened because of what she reports. Read more

Morocco and Press Freedom: A Complicated Relationship

By Ahmed Benchemsi• International Journalism• September 8, 2011

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. Read more

The Ups and Downs of Two Pioneering Magazines

By Ahmed Benchemsi• International Journalism• September 8, 2011

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 journalism," and … Read more

The Revolutionary Force of Facebook and Twitter

By Jillian C. York• International Journalism• September 8, 2011

‘Social media now hold a vital place in this media ecosystem, filling informational voids left by the still bridled state and traditional media.’ Read more