ISSUE

Summer 2000

Election 2000: Politicians and the Press

It’s the tendency to focus on the celebrity, the character, not serious character but personality traits of political figures that trivializes the political process. So the focus of this discussion will be on issues which might be overlooked or underreported in the 2000 campaigns. Issues like those that David Broder spoke of last May when he wrote in his column that it’s quite a trick for something to grow larger and at the same time become more invisible. Broder was talking about the health care issue then, but he might just as well have been talking about any one of a number of issues that loom ill-defined in the background of the campaign rhetoric that focuses on youthful indiscretions or political money.
– Nieman Curator Bill Kovach opening the political Watchdog Journalism conference

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Articles

Watchdog

What Are the New Challenges in the Wake of New Technologies?

Photo © Colin Franzen/U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism,Center for Photography.Bill Kovach, Curator, Nieman Foundation: “We have created a communication system with the new technology during the last two decades…
June 15, 2000
Watchdog

Yes or No? Keeping a Candidate Scorecard

Steven Brill, Publisher of Brill’s Content, told conference participants what he would do to keep candidates accountable and the public interested in coverage of issues.Bill Kovach asked me to think…
Steven Brill
June 15, 2000
Watchdog

How Does Television Affect the Coverage of Political Campaigns?

Cartoon by David Horsey. Reprinted with permission, Seattle Post-Intelligencer.Sheila Tate, President, Powell Tate, and former press secretary: “I’ve had the field producer for a major network come to me in…
June 15, 2000
Watchdog

How Do Editors Decide What Political Stories to Cover?

Photo by Greg Behar/U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, Center for Photography.By a margin of 59 percent to 34 percent, participants in Pew Center survey said they think editors care…
June 15, 2000
Watchdog

Is Getting Personal the Same as Probing Character?

David Broder, columnist, The Washington Post: “The harder part is how we can help voters figure out who the hell these candidates really are and how they might operate. I…
June 15, 2000
Watchdog

Are Members of the Press Bored By Issues?

Ron Faucheux, Editor in Chief, Campaigns & Elections: “[Politicians] are not really complaining about the questions the press is asking. What they’re complaining about is that nobody’s covering their answers.…
June 15, 2000
Watchdog

What Would the People Ask?

Andrew Kohut, Director of The Pew Research Center for The People & The Press, addressed the question of ‘What would the people ask?’ by sharing results of a September 1999…
June 15, 2000
Watchdog

Are We Asking the Right Questions?

Are members of the press asking candidates the right questions? What should those questions be? A number of panelists, including journalists and politicians, had some ideas about specific topics that…
June 15, 2000
Watchdog

Do Members of the Press Try to Set the Policy Agenda?

Lee Hamilton, former congressman from Indiana: “I am impressed about how many people in the media in Washington, D.C. really are not much interested in doing what I at least…
June 15, 2000
Opinion

The Sound You Hear Is Silence

When the subject is corporate immorality, nary a judgmental word is heard.
Morton Mintz
June 15, 2000
Opinion

Designing and Distributing the Survey

With the help of researcher Sue Schuermann, electronic databases were examined to find news stories about corporate crimes and misconduct. These examples were individualized for inclusion in the letters that…
June 15, 2000
Opinion

News Stories about Corporate Crime and Misconduct

The query to editorial page editors and commentators cited more than 20 specific examples of grave corporate crime and misconduct.A sampling follows: The Ortho unit of Johnson & Johnson* pleaded…
June 15, 2000
Watchdog

Summer 2000: Watchdog Conference Introduction

It’s the tendency to focus on the celebrity, the character, not serious character but personality traits of political figures that trivializes the political process. So the focus of this discussion…
Bill Kovach
June 15, 2000
Opinion

‘Journalism and Democracy Are Names for the Same Thing.’

A book raises journalists from their self-interested complacency.
James W. Carey
June 15, 2000
Opinion

Against the Commercial Impulse

An author argues for journalism being a vital force in democracy.
Jeffrey Scheuer
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Keeping a Reporter’s Eye on the Contributions

It’s easier to find the money, but does the public still want to know?
Peter Overby
June 15, 2000
Opinion

Coverage of Media Mergers

Does it provide a window into the future of journalism?
Norman Solomon
June 15, 2000
Opinion

Where Are Muckraking Journalists Today?

An historian says the usual excuses for their absence aren’t valid.
Jessica Dorman
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Summer 2000: Journalist’s Trade Introduction

 As the century began, political reporters flocked to the front porch of the Canton, Ohio home of President William McKinley to dispatch his words to readers. Now, 100 years later,…
Melissa Ludtke
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Uncovering Private Interests in Public Places

Scrutiny of legislators should be part of the statehouse beat.
Diane Renzulli
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Money and Politics on the Web

RELATED ARTICLE“Keeping a Reporter’s Eye on the Contributions”– Peter OverbyThe information revolution has brought an array of Web sites that collect, combine and otherwise buff up the campaign finance reports…
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

The Fun and Frenzy of Internet Political Coverage

At Salon.com, reporting is wrapped in attitude and the writing is edgier.
Jake Tapper
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Multimedia Coverage of the Interactive Kind

At OnPolitics, partnerships and public engagement change the way political news is delivered and digested.
Mark Stencel
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

From the Political Biosphere Into Cyberspace

A Journalist’s Journey From Television to the Web
Kathleen deLaski
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Connecting Political Coverage to Readers’ Concerns

In local reporting, entertainment is a distant second to issues that touch people’s lives.
Michael Riley
June 15, 2000
International Journalism

Summer 2000: International Journalism Introduction

In the fall of 1999, Dragoljub Zarkovic, Editor in Chief of the Serbian independent weekly VREME, walked out of a conference convened by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in…
Melissa Ludtke
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

‘How I Hate the Media.’

For Jesse Ventura, disdain for media attention is selective.
Mike Mulcahy
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Blame Abe Lincoln and Steve Forbes

But don’t expect journalists to give second tier candidates equal attention.
Cragg Hines
June 15, 2000
Nieman Notes

Endnote

Bill Kovach received the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University March 9, 2000. Here are excerpts from his…
Bill Kovach
June 15, 2000
International Journalism

500 Words Is Rarely Enough to Tell the Story

When one of them is Ireland
Shawn Pogatchnik
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Playing the Celebrity Game

Candidates transform themselves into entertainers.
Election Observers
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Watching New Hampshire From Far Away

In California, not all was as it had appeared.
Martin F. Nolan
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Political Journalism, the Way It Used to Be

Jack Germond remembers the different old days.
Jack Nelson
June 15, 2000
Media Censorship During ‘the Troubles’
International Journalism

Media Censorship During ‘the Troubles’

A leading Irish journalist ponders the consequences.
Ed Moloney
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Are Political Reporters a Vanishing Breed?

After 40 years on the beat, one journalist thinks they might be.
Jack W. Germond
June 15, 2000
International Journalism

The Troubles We’ve Seen

In Northern Ireland, the journalists search for explanations.
Eddie Holt
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

Getting to Know You

As many candidates retreat from the press, what we learn is what their strategists want us to know.
Evan Thomas
June 15, 2000
International Journalism

Does Journalism Matter?

After the war in Kosova, Albanian reporters reassess their work.
Ardian Arifaj
June 15, 2000
Journalist’s Trade

‘The Higher We Flew, the Less We Knew.’

A Century of Reporting on the Race for the White House
Doris Kearns Goodwin
June 15, 2000
International Journalism

A Serbian Journalist Answers Critics

Should independent media have agreed to government censorship during the war? ‘Yes,’ one editor says.
Dragoljub Zarkovic
June 15, 2000
Opinion

Summer 2000: Words & Reflections Introduction

If the conscientious practice of journalism is essential to democracy, as the First Amendment attests, then what, if any, contemporary forces are undermining the critical role journalists have historically played?…
Melissa Ludtke
June 15, 2000
Opinion

Examining the United Nations’ Role in Settling Conflicts

Insider journalism leaves too many questions unasked and unanswered.
Roy Gutman
June 15, 2000
Opinion

Journalism and Citizenship

Should there be connections?
Ellen Hume
June 15, 2000
Opinion

Why Should the Public Trust Journalists?

A long-time journalist looks outside his practice for answers.
Cara DeVito
June 15, 2000
Opinion

‘Things Are Not OK.’

An author argues that journalism’s watchdogs are being silenced by greed.
Jim Tharpe
June 15, 2000
Opinion

Can the Press Win Back the Public’s Confidence?

A First Amendment lawyer argues it must.
Lorie Hearn
June 15, 2000