There are journalists and then there are so-called journalists. In the latter camp is Anthony Martin, featured in a hour-long program on Fox news recently, in which he was presented as a journalist. Martin is an obsessive critic of Barack Obama (he says Obama once trained to overthrow the government) and is the source of [...]

As reports proliferate about greed and crime in the suites, it was refreshing to hear praise for a pair of principled newspaper corporate executives, Anthony Ridder, CEO of the former Knight Ridder chain, and Gary Pruitt of McClatchy. John Walcott, Washington bureau chief of Knight Ridder (now McClatchy) lauded both Oct. 7 in remarks on [...]

On the death of William F. Buckley, Jr., publisher of The National Review, Rush Limbaugh became the “elder statesman” of the conservative movement, the New York Times Sunday Magazine reported in its July 6 cover story. The writer, Zev Chafets, said he asked Limbaugh what his own presidential agenda would look like. Here is Limbaugh’s [...]

Out of a decent respect for the memory of Tim Russert, I have held back from commenting on how most of the leading television organizations – CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC – handled the news of his untimely death. Certainly it was appropriate to announce his passing and to add brief encomiums about a fellow [...]

When a couple of colleagues and I wrote a book several years ago about the mistake newspaper companies made when they sold stock to the public and listed it on stock exchanges (Taking Stock: Journalism and the Publicly Traded Newspaper Company; Iowa State University Press), we pointedly did not recommend that the companies rectify the [...]

This first appeared in the Spring 2008 edition of Nieman Reports. Investigative reporting has always been central to the Nieman experience. Journalists specializing in investigative work continue to populate Nieman classes. Speakers address the topic at seminars and workshops. The Nieman Watchdog project offers a platform to reinforce an essential element of watchdog reporting: asking [...]

I.F. Stone’s 100th birthday comes at what feels like a real low point in terms of the iconoclastic, independent journalism with which Stone is so unmistakably identified. So it’s particularly appropriate that the observations of Stone’s birthday aren’t just fond looks back at the rebel journalist’s storied career; they have a strong focus on strengthening [...]

A few days before the Ohio primary, a plainly dispirited unemployed man who was participating in a “60 Minutes” voter panel [click here for transcript], said that early on he was leaning toward Barack Obama, but since he heard that Obama was a Muslim and didn’t salute the flag, he decided against him. I sat [...]

So I’ve heard Al Sharpton answering Meredith Vieira’s questions on the “Today” show and Michael Eric Dyson sparring with Pat Buchanan on “Hardball.” They were all discussing whether Don Imus deserves another on-air chance after his insult of the Rutgers women’s basketball team. I have nothing against Sharpton, Vieira, Dyson or Buchanan. Well, maybe a [...]

Talk about stale news! The substance of the story on the Oct.1 front page of the New York Times business section about shunning unwanted readers, “Why Big Newspapers Applaud Some Declines in Circulation,” has been kicking around, in one form or another, for years. Taking Stock: Journalism and the Publicly Traded Newspaper Company, the book [...]