On the death of William F. Buckley, Jr., publisher of The National Review, Rush Limbaugh became the “elder statesman” of the conservative movement, the New York Times Sunday Magazine reported in its July 6 cover story. The writer, Zev Chafets, said he asked Limbaugh what his own presidential agenda would look like. Here is Limbaugh’s [...]

At the Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau, where I worked for a time, there was a photograph on the wall of my first bureau chief, the late and legendary newsman from Chicago, Ed Lahey, with his memorable words of advice: “Do not fawn upon the mighty.” That comes to mind when I read transcripts of presidential news [...]

I’d like to tell you about a couple of changes we’ve made to this site in recent weeks. One is a new home-page feature, “Elsewhere on the Web,” aimed at letting readers know about some excellent watchdog reporting. As news becomes more and more an online venture, a lot of good work is put out [...]

“Say it Ain’t So, Joe” was the legendary plea of a young fan when famed baseball hero, Shoeless Joe Jackson, testified to his part in throwing the games during the great Chicago Black Sox scandal of 1919. (The boy apparently was more grammatical and said “it isn’t so, is it Joe?” but media hype being [...]

This first appeared as the “Curator’s Corner” essay in the Summer 2008 edition of Nieman Reports. Nieman Fellows visiting Harvard’s Memorial Church often wonder about the last name engraved on the church’s south wall, listing those who died in World War II: “John Brigham Terry, Lucius W. Nieman Fellow.” It had been a bit of [...]