Veteran investigative journalist Ken Armstrong, NF ’01, encourages his fellow reporters to look for patterns rather than isolated anecdotes, to focus on what others have to say rather than joust with sources, and not to be too humble. In a Q. and A. about watchdog reporting, he said stories too often are presented as black and white; what he’d like to see is “less villainizing, more humanizing.” And he singled out Steve Coll’s “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power” as a well-researched book that doesn’t shy from nuance. Read more
Job creation is a key topic in the presidential election but so far it's been all sound bites and no substance. Dan Froomkin, a new contributing editor to Nieman Reports and former deputy editor of the Nieman Watchdog Project, examines the jobs crisis and what's missing from Romney and Obama's statements on the issue. Neither seems ready to acknowledge that, in the words of Robert Pollin, author of “Back to Full Employment," creating decent jobs requires “substantial levels of government intervention.” Read more
Photo by Steve Northup. Steve Northup, NF ’74, is a former staff photographer for United Press International, The Washington Post, and Time magazine. This photograph, taken in 1972, is currently on display at … Read more
They died the same weekend, one 26, a prodigy of the Internet age who took his own life, the other an 89-year-old whose moral battles were waged on newsprint and whose final assignment … Read more
Dave McNeely, NF ’76, on the Emmy Award-winning Larry L. King, NF ’70, co-writer of the hit Broadway musical “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” Read more
Dan Wakefield, NF ’64, edited and annotated the recently published “Kurt Vonnegut: Letters.” Here he reflects on first meeting Vonnegut during his Nieman year and the impact the resulting friendship had on his own writing career Read more
