The reporters were used to getting stonewalled by the administration, but now the protesters demanding change were also shutting them out. One news organization, determined to tell the protesters’ stories, struck a deal: reporters would not identify the protesters or … Read more
On April 3, Mandy Jenkins paused from her work as general manager of The Compass Experiment — a partnership between Google and McClatchy to explore new business models for local news — to take a call. She had to be … Read more
When I hear teachers or soldiers or ministers talk about what they do as a calling, I get it. Though the public may not believe it, journalists carry a similar sense of duty and purpose, a similar feeling of being … Read more
In Weare, New Hampshire, a small town about 45 minutes from the state’s southern border with Massachusetts, the local newspaper is largely a one-man show. Michael Sullivan is de facto publisher and editor in chief as well as reporter, … Read more
In an essay first published in 1999 that graces his collection “Things That Matter” (2013), the late Charles Krauthammer answered a question posed by Time magazine: Who was the most important person in … Read more
For journalists, second-guessing election coverage is second nature. So it wasn’t surprising that Margaret Sullivan, The Washington Post media columnist, recently offered reporters what the headline called a “radical idea:” Forget the polls and the horse race and … Read more
We live in an apparent paradox: trust in institutions is dropping, while trust in individuals at those institutions seems to be on the rise. According to an ongoing study from the Pew Research Center, trust in the federal government remains … Read more
I was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the city where the Civil War began and attended a school system still segregated and underfunded nearly half a century after Brown v. Board of Education, a system that didn’t know quite how … Read more
On a Sunday morning this past spring, while the talking heads of cable news were slugging it out on opposite sides of the ever-growing partisan divide, seven citizens on NBC’s “Meet the Press” did something astonishing: They listened to each … Read more
“Inconsequential days in London, including talks with people,” wrote Walter Lippmann in his diary entry for July 22-26, 1914. A graduate of Harvard, 24-year-old Lippmann had arrived in Britain a few days before for a European tour. Read more
