Bob CollinsIt must have been embarrassing for the school system in Pittsburg, Kansas when a group of young journalists did the job the adults who run the system should’ve done. Read more →
MPR News Reflections and observations on the news
Tag: journalism
Jacqui Helbert, 32, was fired by the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, which owns WUTC, the NPR affiliate, after local politicians complained about her coverage of a group of high school students who lobbied against a bill forcing Tennessee students to use restrooms and locker rooms matching the sex listed on their birth certificates.
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It was like old times on the television on Sunday morning. There was Ted Koppel, patiently listening to the person he was talking to — Sean Hannity — shortly before destroying him on the question of the death of journalism. Read more →
Sixty-three years ago tonight (Thursday), Edward R. Murrow set a standard which TV journalism has struggled to equal every day since.
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The most frightening part of the White House’s assertion that the free press is the enemy of the American people is that the free press has had to work so hard in subsequent days to point out why it’s not. Read more →
Where does ‘the left’ end and ‘the right’ begins? Is there a middle somewhere where people are neither left nor right? Or is it that people who are in the middle — if it exists — just don’t post on the Internet or make it on to NPR? Read more →
A refugee from Somali had been walking for 21 hours when he crossed from Minnesota to Canada. He was nearly frozen. A CBC reporter met him and put him in his car to warm him up and called the police. Does that challenge an ethic that says journalists shouldn’t get involved in the stories they cover? Read more →
Cody NelsonThe 2016 stabbing was among dozens of incidents the president accused the media of underreporting. But there was plenty of reporting. Read more →
Since this post from a reporter for Marketplace appeared this week, a number of people online have asked me for my opinion.
No, thank you. For obvious reasons, including the fact I don’t know anything about the details Read more →
When we heard NPR’s segment the other morning about why the network didn’t refer to Donald Trump’s repeated assertion that millions of illegal immigrants voted for Hillary Clinton, denying him a popular vote victory, a ‘lie’ we figured that NPR’s ombudsman would surely hear about it. She did. And she’s issued her ruling. Read more →
The latest volley over whether journalist should say Donald Trump is lying comes after he indicated this week that he would have won the popular vote for president had it not been for voter fraud. There’s no evidence that’s the case, nor is it the first time the president has repeated the falsehood nor been told it’s a falsehood. Read more →
There was, apparently, some anger within NPR when two of its journalists — David Gilkey and Zabihullah Tamanna — were killed when their Humvee was hit by heavy weapons fire while they were covering the war in Afghanistan last June.
Why were they in harm’s way? Could their deaths have been avoided.
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Of all of the ludicrous, misplaced, and, frankly, chilling criticisms and intimidation of the free press in recent days, none rises to the level of absurdity as the criticism leveled against the Minnesota media overnight for showing images of Gov. Mark Dayton’s collapse during his State of the State address. Read more →
During last week’s confirmation hearings for attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., asked Sessions whether he would affirm a Justice Department guideline not to prosecute journalists for doing their job if he is confirmed.
‘Senator Klobuchar, I am not sure,’ Sessions said.
That’s not a good enough answer for the head of NPR News. Read more →