Nieman Watchdog

Localizing a Washington scoop the (almost) easy way
SHOWCASE
Going online for Congressional Research Service reports and hearings transcripts provides a big assist to reporters anywhere in their coverage of Washington, DC, news. Writer Andrew Kreig describes how.

FCC chairman Genachowski says he wants data that are "robust, reliable, and relevant.” (AP photo)

Why does the FCC keep using old data?
COMMENTARY
There aren’t many ‘small’ or ‘very small’ Internet service providers. But you can’t tell that from data the broadband and Internet regulators use to make decisions that benefit the big telecoms.

How much have today’s wars weakened the economy?
COMMENTARY
Jobs programs of the 1930s cut deeply into Depression unemployment and World War II then put almost everybody to work, often at more than one job. Not so with today’s wars. Only the oil companies and military and security contractors have made real gains from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, says Harvard economist Linda Bilmes.

Reporting the Collapse | Wars may end but spending on them doesn’t
COMMENTARY
There are fundamental flaws in the way the press deals with the costs of war, says Linda Bilmes. She, along with her colleague Joseph Stiglitz, put the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan at more than $3 trillion — an enormous drag on the economy — in addition to the personal loss to families and communities of injured and dead troops.

Chosen by current Nieman Fellows | Slain Sri Lankan editor, Afghan journalists win the 2009 Louis Lyons award
SHOWCASE
Prize, named for longtime Nieman curator, goes to an editor who predicted his own murder and to journalists of Afghanistan as a group for delivering the news in a dangerous reporting environment.

Reporting the Collapse | A need to 'dig beneath the corporate surface'
COMMENTARY
Simon Johnson of MIT says reporting like Ida Tarbell's of 100 years ago is badly needed today. One suggestion: the press should take on the financial institutions that helped cause the financial collapse, and are even benefiting from it.

Priced out of the market | How much does an active duty soldier cost per year, and can we afford it?
ASK THIS
The all-volunteer armed forces are said to be so expensive that they either will get smaller or go broke. Columnist George Wilson says leaders need to be asked how they plan to deal with rapidly rising, unaffordable costs.

Digging In | The Pentagon's building boom in Afghanistan indicates a long war ahead
COMMENTARY
The Pentagon has been funneling stimulus-sized sums of money to defense contractors to markedly boost its military infrastructure in Afghanistan, writes Nick Turse.

Reporting the Collapse | The case for taxing the very rich
COMMENTARY
There's no real economic recovery while so many Americans remain jobless. A new stimulus could bring about full employment, write Martin Lobel and Lee Ellen Helfrich, but it would be expensive. One way to fund it would be to increase taxes on the very rich, and cut their tax loopholes.

Reporting the Collapse | The economic debate is a little too bloodless
COMMENTARY
The clash of economic models—the choice, right now, of higher or lower deficits—is being played out as a passionless exercise by politicians in Washington even as the lives of real people, perhaps numbering in the millions, are being devastated.

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