My departure point for any discussion of national security reporting is an evening in the early 1980’s, when I was a Washington correspondent for The New York Times. Several days earlier, I had been handed a heavily classified memorandum to … Read more
Harry S. Ashmore 1916-1998In April 1960, The New York Herald Tribune published 12 articles by Harry S. Ashmore, who had just left The Arkansas Gazette where he had served for 12 … Read more
He was young, but he knew it was the kind of story that could change lives and win prizes so he didn’t hesitate when his editors asked him to spend two months living in a crack-infested community. Years later, Fernando … Read more
The first paper on four areas of watchdog journalism concerns the economic sector. As these cartoons show, some issues that disturb the country have not changed in the last century—fear of inflation, immigration and taxes. Read more
It was a coin toss as to which provoked more contempt in my youth, authority or celebrity. Fred Friendly combined them both, though his celebrity was of the professional, behind-the-scenes sort. He was the radio and television producer behind the … Read more
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, … Read more
The local head of a nationally recognized charity earns nearly $200,000 a year, travels the globe at the nonprofit’s expense and receives a new car of the model of his choice every other year from his board of directors. A … Read more
When I was teaching journalism—communication, as most educators prefer nowadays—the authors of a widely used introductory textbook insisted that part of the media’s mission is the "transference of culture." Meaning, perpetuating the mores, habits, etc., good and bad, that bind … Read more
When newspapers start believing what they are told, there is no surer way to cheat a reader. Good reporters never take a politician’s word, but verify claims instead. Reporters know that even the most civic-minded corporate CEO’s work for stockholders, … Read more
Seymour M. Hersh has won more than a dozen major journalism prizes as an investigative reporter, including the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his disclosure of the My Lai massacre in … Read more
