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Even before the facts were in, few media watchers were shocked by the notion that journalistic ethics might be an afterthought when dishing about the famous. But it wasn’t always so. The architect of the modern gossip industry was Walter Winchell, who had his own keen, if unique, sense of principle. Brooke speaks with Neal Gabler, author of Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity, about Winchell’s commitment to delivering his dish buffet-style.
A year ago this week, students at Red Lake Senior High School on the Ojibwa Reservation in Northern Minnesota returned to school after the most deadly school shooting since Columbine. No community can ever be prepared for a tragedy like that. But in Red Lake, the inevitable media frenzy consisted in large part of reporters who knew nothing of Ojibwa culture, and the tribe, whose Constitution says nothing about press freedom, declared much of the Reservation off limits to reporters. Louise Mengelkoch, a journalism professor at nearby Bemidji State University lays out for Bob the anatomy of a coverage breakdown.
One of the few reporters who had access to the Red Lake community and its tribal leaders after the shooting was Dorreen Yellow Bird, a reporter at the Grand Forks Herald and a Native American herself. A couple of weeks ago, Yellow Bird was asked back to Red Lake for a rare interview on the occasion of the one-year anniversary. She reports to Bob on the news from within.
You are a White House reporter, invited for a rare sit-down meeting with the President. The only condition is that the conversation, whatever it covers, will be strictly off-the-record. Do you agree to talk with the President on the President’s terms? Knight Ridder White House correspondent Ron Hutcheson weighs the options with Bob.
By the time the polls closed last weekend in Belarus, protesters had already taken to the street, alleging vote-fraud and strong-arm tactics by President Alexander Lukashenko. The so-called Denim Revolution had many of the marks of other recent resistance efforts – in Ukraine, in Georgia, and Serbia. But in the end, it was the Revolution that Wasn’t. Bob talks to The Economist correspondent Andrew Miller about the regime’s media clampdown. He also speaks with Srdja Popovic, a consultant to democracy advocates worldwide, about what went wrong.
For countries bedeviled by war crimes, genocide and all manner of trauma it’s been described as the last resort for justice - the international war crimes trial. Part media spectacle, part history lesson, part political scorecard, part attempt at truth and reconciliation the trials have evolved into a messy media phenomenon. Bob speaks with Anthony Dworkin, a former journalist who helps lawyers, journalists and the public at large understand the history, the expectations and the stakes in a modern war crimes trial.
A sudden flourishing of investigative journalism in China has created a Wild West atmosphere – crusading reporters and editors blazing away at the powers that be. But this is taking place in the authoritarian East, where communist party officials make examples of news organizations deemed too quick on the draw. That inherent conflict is apparent in the teaching of journalism in China. Bob speaks with Xiguang Li, dean of the School of Journalism, at Beijing's Tsinghua University.
On Friday, the Chinese government announced it was dropping its case against jailed New York Times researcher, Zhao Yan. His imprisonment points to the essential conflict of Chinese journalism: communist leaders trying to navigate global free markets without surrendering to the free market of ideas. Bob talks to David Bandurski, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong's China Media Project.
