A month after Nieman Watchdog posted my piece urging news organizations’ owners and managers to hold their talk-show hosts accountable, one of the most popular—and most awful—of those hosts demonstrated anew the need to bring accountability to these motor-mouths. Autism is “[a] fraud, a racket,” Michael Savage asserted on “The Savage Nation” on July 16. [...]

Following up on a piece by Gil Cranberg, I wonder if it isn’t time for the mainstream press to treat the president as it would any suspect of a crime, in this case, war crimes, which are punishable under American law. After all, we’ve seen endless stories about all sorts of crimes and suspects. The [...]

Like many, I am sure, who have seen the new New Yorker cover, I am still reeling. Nothing the far right wingnut media brigade has promulgated is as offensive or damaging as this cartoon: Obama in full Muslim gear, Michelle in an Angela Davis style Afro, terrorist rifle slung over her shoulder, fist bumping while [...]

When journalists are caught recycling material, a frequently-heard explanation is that they commingled notes – that is, they copied passages they admired, put them in their files and then, in the course of writing a story, mistook the borrowed work for their own. This is essentially what Michael E. O’Neill, nominated by President Bush for [...]

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 [...]

At the Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau, where I worked for a time, there was a photograph on the wall of my first bureau chief, the late and legendary newsman from Chicago, Ed Lahey, with his memorable words of advice: “Do not fawn upon the mighty.” That comes to mind when I read transcripts of presidential news [...]

This first appeared as the “Curator’s Corner” essay in the Summer 2008 edition of Nieman Reports. Nieman Fellows visiting Harvard’s Memorial Church often wonder about the last name engraved on the church’s south wall, listing those who died in World War II: “John Brigham Terry, Lucius W. Nieman Fellow.” It had been a bit of [...]

Here are four lunacies the news media tried to foist off on me recently, four of many, I fear. 1. A local television station was bursting with pride because one of its employees had donated 77 gallons of blood last year to the Blood Center of Iowa. In addition to the breathless on-air report, the [...]

The election may depend upon it: How to instruct the average American voter to discern the difference between a poisonous lie and a truth based on evidence. A fine June 30 Washington Post story written by Eli Saslow vividly and painfully illustrates the point. The writer tells the tale of Jim Peterman, a 74-year-old retiree [...]

If you go to Page 17 of the national edition of the June 25 New York Times, stop at a story headed “Bipartisan Group to Speak Out on Detainees,” then scroll down to the ninth paragraph, you will find the following statement by retired Major General Antonio Taguba: “There is no longer any doubt as [...]