ISSUE

Winter 2013

Critical Condition

“If you are counting full-time critic jobs at newspapers, you may as well count tombstones.” That was the response of Johanna Keller, director of the Goldring Arts Journalism Program at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, to a Nieman Reports query about the number of professional critics employed at dailies around the country. The figures on newspaper critics (News flash: they're not good) are one indication of the state of criticism today, but they are not the only one.

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Articles

Live @ Lippmann

Jenna Wortham, Brian Stelter talk NYTimes, online world

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Brian Stelter
April 2, 2013
Niemans @ Work

What Happened in Qubair

Deborah Amos, NF ’92, on covering a massacre in a central Syrian farming village
Deborah Amos
March 19, 2013
Niemans @ Work

No Such Thing as “Foreign” Anymore

Maria Balinska, NF ’10, on why it’s time to mash up local and global news
Maria Balinska
March 18, 2013
Live @ Lippmann

“Truth Is Not About What the Majority Believes”

Documentary filmmaker and author Errol Morris on how we are all error-generating machines
Errol Morris
March 14, 2013
From the Curator

Ghosts Speaking Across the Page

They died the same weekend, one 26, a prodigy of the Internet age who took his own life, the other an 89-year-old whose moral battles were waged on newsprint and…
Ann Marie Lipinski
March 12, 2013
“They Promised to Take Our Land, and They Took It”
Nieman Notes

“They Promised to Take Our Land, and They Took It”

Steve Northup, NF ’74, is a former staff photographer for United Press International, The Washington Post, and Time magazine. This photograph, taken in 1972, is currently on display at the…
Steve Northup
March 12, 2013
Bolivia by Bus
Nieman Notes

Bolivia by Bus

How Raul Peñaranda, NF ’08, and his daily newspaper went off the map to rediscover their own country
Raul Peñaranda
March 12, 2013
Nieman Notes

From Twitter to Gellhorn via Mexico

Three Nieman Visiting Fellows undertake diverse short-term projects during 2013
Daniel Eilemberg
March 12, 2013
Nieman Notes

Winter 2013: Class Notes

1962Sebastiaan Kleu, a South African editor and economist, died of heart failure on October 11th. He was 85.Kleu began his career in journalism on the editorial board of the Afrikaans-language…
March 12, 2013
Nieman Notes

“The End is Inevitable, But Not Predictable”

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and former New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, NF ’57, remembers Stanley Karnow, NF ’58
Anthony Lewis
March 12, 2013
Nieman Notes

“Get This Boy in Our Stable”

Dan Wakefield, NF ’64, edited and annotated the recently published “Kurt Vonnegut: Letters.” Here he reflects on first meeting Vonnegut during his Nieman year and the impact the resulting friendship…
Dan Wakefield
March 12, 2013
Nieman Notes

Waiting it Out in Kings Tavern

Dave McNeely, NF ’76, on the Emmy Award-winning Larry L. King, NF ’70, co-writer of the hit Broadway musical “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”
Dave McNeely
March 12, 2013
Niemans @ Work

Control Information, Control Souls

Yu Gao, deputy managing editor of Caixin Media and affiliate of 2013 Nieman Fellow Jin Deng, on how Chinese media censorship works
Yu Gao
March 12, 2013
Sounding

Identity and Integrity

Should a reporter ever be off duty?
Yaakov Katz
March 12, 2013
Books

Can’t Live with ’em, Can’t Live without ’em

How big telecoms firms put a chokehold on America’s communication pipelines—and what should be done about it
Dan Froomkin
March 12, 2013
Books

Tricks of the Trade

Undercover reporting fell out of favor in the 1970s but is it worth another look?
Philip Meyer
March 12, 2013
Books

Southern Exposure

How three Niemans drove coverage of the civil rights movement
Gene Roberts
March 12, 2013
Books

What We Talk About When We Talk About War

War correspondent Kevin Sites explores what happens to veterans who have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq
Christina Lamb
March 12, 2013
Watchdog

It Can’t Happen Here

Why is there so little coverage of Americans who are struggling with poverty?
Dan Froomkin
March 12, 2013
'Speaking From Beneath the Sea'
Features

‘Speaking From Beneath the Sea’

Marcela Turati tried to hide her tears, but the rainy season was still weeks away and teardrops were hard to disguise.As I approached her, she quickly turned her face, trying…
Alfredo Corchado
March 12, 2013
Features

Reporting from America’s Silent Spaces

Sandy Close, recipient of the 2012 I.F. Stone Medal, has made a career out of helping ethnic communities and the dispossessed tell their own stories
Kimberly French
March 12, 2013
Features

The Voice on the Other End of the Line

Close asked Mark O’Brien, confined to an iron lung, to write about sex and disability. A documentary she co-produced about him won an Oscar. Photo by Paul Sakuma/The Associated Press.RELATED…
Kimberly French
March 12, 2013
Opinion

The Illumination Business

Why drama critics must look at and look after the theater
John Lahr
March 12, 2013
Features

Select, Shape, Celebrate

The critic’s calling is to elevate the good and ignore the bad
Maria Popova
March 12, 2013
Features

Concision and Clarity

Robert Christgau reflects on the art of writing well about music
Brett Anderson
March 12, 2013
Features

Consumer Retorts

When everybody’s a critic, what’s the role of a professional reviewer?
Kimberly D. Kleman
March 12, 2013
Opinion

The Reviewer Reviewed

A critic-turned-novelest explores the borders between journalism and fiction
March 12, 2013
Journalist’s Trade

Minimize Description, Maximize Observation

Pulitzer-winner Blair Kamin schools Harvard students in the art of architecture criticism
Dina Kraft
March 12, 2013
Features

But Is It Art?

How the roles of curator and critic can be complementary rather than combative
Paola Antonelli
March 12, 2013
Opinion

Critical Condition

“If you are counting full-time critic jobs at newspapers, you may as well count tombstones.” That was the response of Johanna Keller, director of the Goldring Arts Journalism Program at…
James Geary
March 12, 2013
Features

The Abnormality of Daily Life

The stench seeps through the walls of the morgue. It wafts through schools, businesses and homes, impregnates clothing, sticks in throats and noses, provokes nausea, obliges one to walk faster.…
Marcela Turati
March 11, 2013
Features

Download the Cover Package

Instructions:FOR KINDLE: Download and save the .mobi file to your computer, then transfer to your Kindle via USB, Send to Kindle, or your Kindle e-mail address.FOR TABLETS AND SMARTPHONES: Download…
March 11, 2013
Watchdog

“Exposing the Forces that Grind People Down”

For more than 30 years, author Barbara Ehrenreich has been trying to engage and enrage the public about the devastating impact of poverty in the United States. She’s had some…
Dan Froomkin
March 11, 2013
Journalist’s Trade

Concision and Clarity: The Video Interview

Rock criticism was not a profession, much less an art, when Robert Christgau returned to New York after graduating from Dartmouth College in 1962, at the age of 20. The…
March 6, 2013
Journalist’s Trade

Concision and Clarity: The Extended Transcript

Brett Anderson: We’re here with Robert Christgau, the dean of American rock critics.Robert Christgau: Got it right.Brett: …who has been writing about popular music professionally for closing in on 50 years.…
March 5, 2013
From the Curator

Ghosts Speaking Across the Page

They died the same weekend, one 26, a prodigy of the Internet age who took his own life, the other an 89-year-old whose moral battles were waged on newsprint and…
Ann Marie Lipinski
February 27, 2013