ISSUE

Summer 2008

Cameras, Action and Accountability

"The Web is more important in this presidential campaign and the Pennsylvania primary than the newspaper. Think Web first, and then think newspaper, because you're going to do something different for the newspaper. I'm not saying the newspaper's not important, but first think Web, because if you don't think Web first, it's going to be too late to think Web."

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Articles

Politics Technology

It’s an Online World for Young People and Political News

Why are young people turning away from the mainstream media? And where are they going to get their political news and information?
Jonathan Seitz
June 15, 2008
Visual Journalism

Meeting Resistance on Iraq

On-the-ground reporting with resistance fighters in Baghdad revealed a different narrative than the one portrayed by many in the mainstream news.
Molly Bingham
June 15, 2008
Visual Journalism

The Visual Challenge of Documenting Secrecy

In filming ‘Secrecy,’ the challenge wasn’t access, but finding the best ways to make what is usually hidden from view visible, personal and approachable.
Peter Galison
June 15, 2008
Politics Technology

Linking Newspaper Readers to the Best Political Coverage

“Given the dynamics of the Web … how do news organizations and journalists best serve political news consumers?”
Scott Karp
June 15, 2008
Iraqis: Making Visible the Scars of Exile
Visual Journalism

Iraqis: Making Visible the Scars of Exile

Clothes drying in a window in the Darat al Rashid area, where many Iraqi refugees live. Amman, Jordan. April 2007. Photo by © 2008 Lori Grinker The living-sleeping room, in…
Lori Grinker
June 15, 2008
Nieman Notes

‘How Long Can You Look at a Red Leaf?’

View photos below »I had one chance to see Ansel Adams. In my senior year in college in 1976, I attended a media jobs fair at Howard University. I did…
Derrick Z. Jackson
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Revealing War on a Human Scale

‘It became heroic, tragic, visceral, incomprehensible, beautiful and grotesque — in a word: human.’
Robert Lewis
June 15, 2008
Politics

Reporting From Kansas for MTV’s Street Team

‘If we want to be successful on the Web, it‘s got to be “guerrilla journalism,” edgy and unpredictable.’
Alex Parker
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Private Military Contractors: Determining Accountability

‘The reliance on private contractors and a web of subcontractors can come with a staggering price.’
Joseph Neff
June 15, 2008
Politics Technology

It’s an Online World for Young People and Political News

‘My generation doesn't trust what the lone anchor tells us, nor the pundit, nor the panel of experts.’
Jonathan Seitz
June 15, 2008
Politics

Summer 2008: Introduction

"The Web is more important in this presidential campaign and the Pennsylvania primary than the newspaper. Think Web first, and then think newspaper, because you're going to do something different…
Melissa Ludtke
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Personal Tragedies Illuminate the Consequences of War

In investigating why some Iraq War veterans become homicidal, The New York Times highlighted a circumstance that no one else was tracking.
Matthew Purdy
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Investigative Reporting on Iraq: From Beginning to End

McClatchy's Washington bureau continues its watchdog reporting about Iraq, this time revealing dangers in the new embassy construction.
Warren P. Strobel
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Reporting a Scandal When No One Bothers to Listen

‘It was as though until headlines blared from newsstands in the nation's capital, the trees in this forest weren't really falling.’
Mark Benjamin
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Following the Brain Injury Story: From Iraq to the Home Front

After hearing from Marines in Iraq about head wounds, a USA Today reporter works to get the military to release information about their prevalence.
Gregg Zoroya
June 15, 2008
Politics

Covering the Web as a Force in Electoral Politics

‘During the past year and a half … I've been consistently surprised by the volume of calls we get from journalists asking for help understanding this new medium.’
Micah L. Sifry
June 15, 2008
Technology

The Web’s Pathway to Accuracy

A British journalist, Donnacha DeLong, took aim at the notion of an egalitarian Web in an article published in a trade union magazine. She ridiculed the notion that a blogger…
Tom Fiedler
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Tribunals and War Crimes Trials: Treatment of the Press

Investigative journalists confront intimidating tactics and legal actions against them by international criminal tribunals.
Thierry Cruvellier
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

The Neutrality Maze

When there's one side to the story, what does it mean to stay impartial?
Joshua Kors
June 15, 2008
Politics

Bloggers Push Past the Old Media’s Gatekeepers

From YouTube to The Huffington Post, new media ‘are upending the presidential campaign process and raising questions about journalism's place in it.’
Tom Fiedler
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Covering War: Introduction

As Nieman Reports continues its yearlong project exploring the challenges and opportunities of 21st Century Muckrakers, we draw attention to investigative reporting and photojournalism in the coverage of war.
Melissa Ludtke
June 15, 2008
Politics

Political Blogs: Teaching Us Lessons About Community

In the mediascape of blogs, people ‘want the news delivered to them in the context of their attitudes and beliefs.’
Dan Kennedy
June 15, 2008
Politics

Enclave Extremism and Journalism’s Brave New World

Some contend that The Daily Me, a self-designed compendium of news and information, leads to increased political polarization.
Cass R. Sunstein
June 15, 2008
Politics

Don’t Fear Twitter

Using moment-by-moment observations, ‘Twitter entries build a community of readers who find their way to longer articles ….’
John Dickerson
June 15, 2008
Politics Technology

The “B” Word in Traditional News and on the Web

‘Entering “Hillary” and “bitch” we found more than 500 YouTube videos.’
Jacqueline Dunn
June 15, 2008
Politics

YouTube: The Flattening of Politics

As online video reshapes political coverage, news organizations ignore it ‘at their own peril.’
Steve Grove
June 15, 2008
Politics

Campaign 2008: It’s on YouTube

Since the last presidential election, the ‘bubble’ in which the press once operated ‘has become a fishbowl.’
Albert L. May
June 15, 2008
Politics Technology

For Campaign Coverage, Web Too Often an Afterthought

‘Big news projects on the campaign are still conceived in The Washington Post's newsroom as traditional newspaper stories.’
Russ Walker
June 15, 2008
Politics

Election Coverage Becomes a Time for “Instant Innovation”

At the Knoxville News Sentinel, bloggers were invited to steer good political coverage to the eyes of the newspaper's online readers.
Jack Lail
June 15, 2008
Visual Journalism

Documenting Lebanon After the 2006 War: ‘Deserted Riviera’

Filmmakers decide that, to illuminate the complexities and subtleties of Lebanon's politico-religious tapestry, they had to claim the audience's attention through engaging characters and fast-paced visual units.
Iason Athanasiadis
June 15, 2008
Politics

Shifting Influence: From Institution to Individual

‘Inheriting the old order was not an option for my generation of journalists.‘
John Harris
June 15, 2008
Politics

Young Reporters, New Tools, and Political Reporting

At MTV, the 51 members of Street Team ’08 are experimenting with format, content and distribution as they find stories to tell to a youthful audience.
Liz Nord
June 15, 2008
Politics

Adding Radio and Video Web Casts to Political News in Print

‘… am I becoming the first correspondent in my paper’s history who has no time to think?’
Pekka Mykkänen
June 15, 2008
Politics

Only the Reader Sleeps

As political coverage meets the insatiable Web, ‘Reporters and editors have less and less time and more and more responsibilities to file, and to keep filing.’
Kate Phillips
June 15, 2008
Visual Journalism

Using Documentary Film to Deeply Explore Issues

‘It seemed to me solid news reporting could no longer do its job.’
Ayelet Bechar
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Terrorism and Prisoners: Stories That Should Be Told

‘… stories about how we might balance security and civil liberties began slipping deeper inside major newspapers.’
Tim Golden
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Creating an Investigative Narrative

On the second morning of the Nieman Foundation's three-day 2008 Conference on Narrative Journalism, Anne Hull, a 1995 Nieman Fellow, and Dana Priest, who investigated and wrote The Washington Post's…
Anne Hull
June 15, 2008
Visual Journalism

Visual Testimony About War

All photos by Peter van Agtmael.For the past two and a half years, I have covered war and its consequences in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the United States. As an…
Peter van Agtmael
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Probing the High Suicide Rate Among Soldiers in Iraq

In pushing for the military to release undisclosed data, reporters found soldiers who battled mental illness and took their own lives during the war.
Lisa Chedekel
June 15, 2008
21st Century Muckrakers

Combining Investigative Reporting With an Editorial Voice

‘… it became clear that the editorial board could advocate for changes by presenting the facts in a fresh, in-depth way and by speaking with scientific-based authority.’
Beverly Weintraub
June 15, 2008
Nieman Notes

The Last Day of a Great Ride

‘There are far too many goodbye parties in newsrooms like The Boston Globe for employees like me who are taking buyouts …’
Charles M. Sennott
June 15, 2008
Diversity

The Spanish-Language Press Delves Into Racial Complexities

‘Most notable was the story line in which Latino voters were described in ways that made them seem monolithic.’
Elena Shore
June 15, 2008
Politics

Fast-Paced Journalism’s Neglect of Nuance and Context

‘In online reporting, news breaks and context is often added later.’
Sam Stein
June 15, 2008
Journalist’s Trade Politics

Trivial Pursuit: It Happens Too Often in Political Coverage

‘… some of the worst features of campaign reporting emanate from the kinds of psychological defenses that reporters erect to deal with their insecurities.’
Christopher Hayes
June 15, 2008
Politics

New Media Battles Old to Define Internet-Era Politics

The media are constantly on the lookout for the odd moment that might capture some revealing truth about a candidate — and, ideally, create a feeding frenzy that consumes the…
John McQuaid
June 15, 2008
Politics

Determining If a Politician Is Telling the Truth

‘Through our Truth-O-Meter, we graphically show the relative truth of each claim.’
Bill Adair
June 15, 2008
Politics

Political Journalists — Writing for Online Publications

Arianna Huffington, whose Huffington Post has quickly become one of the more successful news and information blog sites, recognized in 2007 that if her army of volunteer bloggers were to…
Tom Fiedler
June 15, 2008
Politics

New Media Battles Old to Define Internet-Era Politics

‘Because of tradition, inertia and command of the largest, most diverse audiences, the mainstream media still drive the campaign bus with the same old road map.’
John McQuaid
June 15, 2008
Politics

The Jigs and Jags of Digital Political Coverage

Since it emerged, the online world has been a source of trepidation for journalists. The American Journalism Review captured the foreboding in its 1999 article, “Navigating a Minefield.”There have been…
Albert L. May
June 15, 2008
From the Curator

Wartime and the Nieman Foundation

Nieman Fellows visiting Harvard's Memorial Church often wonder about the last name engraved on the church's south wall, listing those who died in World War II: "John Brigham Terry, Lucius…
Bob Giles
June 8, 2008