Orville Schell describes the dilemma journalists face when reporting the news in wartime. “[Reporters] know if they just come up with bad news, they’re going to be pilloried. They know their news outlets will be criticized. Advertisers will abandon,” he…
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Baghdad: The Besieged Press The New York Review of Books
The small Royal Jordanian Fokker F-28-4000, which makes daily trips to Baghdad, sits out on the tarmac away from the jetways as if some airport official feared it might prove to be an airborne IED (improvised explosive device, a US…
In the Twilight Zone Salon
In recent history, there have been few wars more difficult to report on than the war in Iraq today. When I was covering the war in Indochina, journalists went out into the field, even into combat, knowing that we would…
Smothered in a Security Blanket Asia Times
"Ladies and Gents," the South African pilot matter-of-factly announced over the intercom. "We’ll be starting our spiral descent into Baghdad, where the temperature is 19 degrees Celsius." The vast and mesmerizing expanse of sandpapery desert that has been stretching out…
“We Have Been Bull-Dozed Aside.” Orville Schell Says J-Schools Have to Get More Involved
“Journalism as a whole is clearly in something of a crisis,” Schell said in the Times article announcing the consortium via PressThink: “We Have Been Bull-Dozed Aside.” Orville Schell Says J-Schools Have to Get More Involved..
Why the Media Failed Americans Asia Times
When on May 26 the editors of the New York Times published a mea culpa for the paper’s one-sided reporting on weapons of mass destruction and the Iraq war, they admitted to "a number of instances of coverage that was…
Unification Can Only Follow Democratization Yale Global
Why is Taiwan’s relationship with China so intractable an issue? Why, when they share common economic interests – 1 million Taiwanese live in China, working in some 50,000 firms in which Taiwanese have invested over US$400 billion – does China…
BOOKS OF THE TIMES; A Lonely Voice in China Is Critical on Rights and Reform The New York Times
”China’s New Order,” three essays on recent development in that country by Wang Hui, is an interesting and comprehensive critique of China’s Promethean reform movement and its unique form of Leninist capitalism. Mr. Wang, editor of the journal Dushu (Reading)…
From Sands to Quagmire The San Francisco Chronicle
"People say to me, ‘You are not the Vietnamese. You have no jungles and swamps,’ " Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz is quoted as telling a University of Warwick researcher six months ago. "I reply, ‘Let our cities be…
BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Sending ‘Liberal Media’ Truism to the Fact-Checker The New York Times
The attacks on the World Trade Center and our subsequent military involvement in Central Asia shocked Americans into a fleeting recognition of how dependent we actually are on the news media to keep us informed about complex global issues. Now…