A reporter’s fateful question on March 31, 1954 led to the story that had more influence on my lifetime of science reporting than any other. The answer, symbolizing an age driven by science, ricocheted around the world the next day. Read more
The story “Who Owns Luneng?”, now back online, was censored immediately after Caijing Magazine published it in January 2007. At newsstands, the magazine was bought up not by readers, but by people who didn’t want others to read it. On … Read more
Having grown up in North Carolina and required as a child to learn the history of my state, I couldn’t help but be horrified upon learning of a bloody, national event left out of my schoolbooks. Nieman … Read more
I began in journalism at The University of Michigan student newspaper and became a fan of investigative journalist I.F. Stone’s weekly newsletter and the way he mined government documents to break stories. After 12 years at two St. Louis newspapers, … Read more
I entered journalism in the late 1980s—about 40 years after India gained freedom from British colonial rule. The media environment, in large part, was shaped by this colonial history. Many English language newspapers were launched by colonists for colonists, and … Read more
Nieman 80 More Nieman Fellows on exemplary journalism that influenced them One of the eternal struggles for journalists is between the need to belong to something bigger than themselves and the urge for independence. Nearly every reporter … Read more
Nieman 80 More Nieman Fellows on exemplary journalism that influenced them “The Money Shot” is a story about the male porn industry in Los Angeles and the suicide of one of its stars. It … Read more
In my 11 years at The Namibian, Namibia’s largest daily newspaper, we have never published an investigative story that was more widely read than one earlier this year about a $10,000 bed and other furniture worth more than $100,000 that … Read more
As cultural critic at the Chicago Tribune for a dozen years, I was sometimes called upon to write the big, epic think pieces that necessarily follow in the wake of big, epic events. The dawn of the new millennium. Columbine. Read more
Indonesia’s transition since 1998 from the Suharto military dictatorship to democracy has presented journalists with many challenges. Indonesia’s Press Council estimates the country now has 43,000 news organizations from fewer than 300 in 1998. In addition, Indonesia is the largest … Read more