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We devote the show this week to the illustrious past and perilous future of investigative reporting. How will investigative stories fare in an era of layoffs and slashed newsrooms budgets? Reporter and UC Berkeley professor Lowell Bergman, Stephen Engelberg of the investigative nonprofit ProPublica and The City University of New York's Jeff Jarvis discuss the past, present and potential future of this core journalistic enterprise.
When Washington Post intelligence reporter Dana Priest began investigating prisoner treatment in Afghanistan after 9/11, she had no idea the trail would lead her to uncovering the Bush administration’s 'black sites' program - secret U.S. prisons for extra-legal interrogation of ‘enemy combatants.’ Priest details her scoop and reporting on government secrets during the so-called war on terror.
On March 16, 1968 U.S. soldiers entered the South Vietnamese village of My Lai and killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in what became the most notorious atrocity of the war. Last March, we spoke with New Yorker correspondent Seymour Hersh about the on-the-ground reporting behind his Pulitzer Prize winning scoop.
For two decades now, Jackson Clarion Ledger reporter Jerry Mitchell has been reinvestigating old Civil Rights era crimes and helping bring their perpetrators to justice. Mitchell updates us on the progress he's made on some big cases and explains how he gets criminals to tell him their stories.
Filmmakers have long been fascinated by the idea of the grizzled reporter chasing a scoop. In the silent era, titles like “The Daring of Diana” and “The Final Extra” treated journalism as adventure – and it’s no different in the modern age. Joe Saltzman, director of the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture, discusses the movie reporter.
Highlights from Past Shows
Biodefense researcher Bruce Ivins committed suicide last week after he was informed by the FBI that he would likely face charges in connection with the 2001 anthrax attacks. Salon's Glenn Greenwald believes, regardless of Ivins' guilt or innocence, media have failed to cover this story skeptically.
A report released Monday by Amnesty International alleged that Chinese media repression, arrests of dissidents and other human rights abuses have not eased in anticipation of the world's focus on Beijing. These embarrassments would seem to undermine China's dream of showcasing its economic miracle for the world. But the Asia Society's Orville Schell says that to know China's history was to see this behavior coming.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
