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For almost 30 years, the identity of the Watergate figure known as Deep Throat has remained a secret. Now a journalism class at the University of Illinois claims to have definitively solved the mystery. Professor William Gaines and his students fingered Fred Fielding, a lawyer in the Nixon White House, as the anonymous source who provided information to Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Bob talks to Professor Gaines about the project.
Despite the rapid spread of SARS in China, until recently there was a virtual media blackout about the disease there. Earlier this week, the International Press Institute condemned China's suppression of reporting about the SARS epidemic. Bob discusses China's handling of the crisis with UC Berkeley J-School Dean Orville Schell.
A week into the war in Iraq, the picture we are getting from the domestic press is quite different from that portrayed by the foreign press. This gulf is especially large when it comes to the Middle Eastern media. United Press Chief Correspondent and inveterate media watcher Martin Walker is in Kuwait, and gives us a view from the ground.
Earlier this month, The New Yorker printed a story about Pentagon advisor Richard Perle, suggesting a conflict of interest between his business interests and his influence over policy. In response, Perle threatened to sue the article's author, Seymour Hersh, for libel…in England. Solicitor David Hooper joins Bob from London to explain what's driving Perle, and others like him, across the ocean.
A campaign in British Parliament to reclaim the English language is turning heads in the U.K. And its organizers are happy about that. Never mind that their real concern is the foreign ownership of British television stations. Campaign for Press and Broadcast Freedom spokesman Granville Williams explains his group's drive against 'Americanisms.'
When activists mounted a media campaign to condemn Nike's labor practices, Nike used the media to respond. But the activists cried foul, and California's highest court agreed. Now, it's up to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide where free speech ends, and advertising begins. Brooke discusses the case and its implications with Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe, who is defending Nike in court.
Last summer, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved rules requiring broadcasters airing the opinion of securities analysts to also disclose any business interests that the analysts or their firms might have in the stocks being discussed. Now, the SEC is poised to approve a similar rule for the print media. Adam Lashinsky, a columnist for Fortune Magazine, believes the rule acts as a gag order, limiting freedom of press. He speaks with Bob.
The balance between an unfettered press and national security is an ongoing debate in government that has swung toward the side of national security since the World Trade Center attacks. Brooke hears both sides from Scott Armstrong of the National Security Archive and Barbara Comstock of the Justice Department.
