Watchdog, Attack Dog, or Lapdog?
This issue on Watchdog Journalism originated with a call by Murrey Marder, the retired Washington Post Diplomatic Correspondent, for a return to more aggressive, but responsible, reporting. The package begins with two articles on the media's handling of the accusations that President Clinton had an improper sexual relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky. Excerpts from a seminar by Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, follow. Then we offer position papers on the status of watchdog journalism in four areas—the economic sector, state and local government, national security and nonprofit organizations.
Somewhere back there, someone decided that rather than jump off a slave ship and kill themselves, they saw a future. Rather than give up and die and not deal with the horrors of plantation life, they decided there was a future. I'm testimony to that. Therefore they saw in some sense that my future was here, this was my land. They had an investment here and I'm testimony to that. With that in mind, then this history is as much my history as your history. This history is as much my history as anyone's history. With that recognition, we as a people have to engage history together. It's not a black history, it's not a white history. It's about an American history.
Orlando Bagwell, founder and President of ROJA Productions, a Boston-?based independent film and television production company, at a Nieman Fellows Seminar January 22, 1998.
