Late last month, my son and I were photographed outside of Columbia College Chicago for a story about my employer’s new policy limiting children on campus. The Chicago Tribune photographer captured him in a wrap on my back, his blue Vans untied and a floral mask covering his face. It was my baby’s first newspaper…
I was still a relatively young reporter in The Washington Post newsroom when the US launched its longest war in history following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I came of age as a journalist in the 20 years that followed, becoming part of a generation of reporters who ended up on a battlefield, first in Afghanistan…
Washington University has condemned student Fadel Alkilani for removing some of the 2,977 American flags that the College Republicans placed on Mudd Field this past weekend to commemorate the victims of the 9-11 attacks. In a statement issued Sunday, Chancellor Andrew Martin declared that Alkilani’s action impeded “the free exchange of ideas.” The university is…
A few days ago I shared an op-ed on my personal Facebook page by a doctor in Los Angeles who wrote that she was running out of compassion for the people unwilling to get the COVID vaccine. “Last year, a case like this would have flattened me,” the doctor wrote of a man who had…
Remembering a great journalist, investigator, teacher, mentor and friend When I woke up the day after William A. Recktenwald died this week, the first thing I heard in my head was his gravelly voice asking, “How are you doing my friend?” It was a greeting I had heard from “Reck” dozens of times over the…