By William H. Freivogel >> French publication Le Monde headlined this week that it was “The week the US shook Europe’s world.” Americans could justifiably say it’s the month that shook ours. There is no precedent for President Donald Trump’s massive restructuring of the government with a flurry of executive orders, pronouncements, firings and pardons
By William H. Freivogel >> While President Donald Trump unleashes a torrent of legally questionable exertions of power, Congress sits by compliantly, the U.S. Supreme Court remains unengaged and the Fourth Estate shrinks from its role as a watchdog of presidential abuse. Media executives even curry favor with the man they’re supposed to be watching.
By William H. Freivogel >> If President-elect Donald Trump follows through on the threats and actions he directed at the press during the election campaign and his first administration, an already weakened press could suffer further harm over the next four years. A weaker press, in turn, weakens an important constitutional check on government, one
By Bob Chiarito In late June in Chicago, after a routine hearing in a federal lawsuit against the city brought by a coalition of protest groups that want closer access to the Democratic National Convention, the plaintiffs and their attorneys gathered in the lobby of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse for a short press conference. This
Perfectly objective journalism seems like the perfectly moral life—unattainable by ordinary humans. But recent experience has reaffirmed the importance of the classic journalistic virtues of open-minded fact-finding, and fair, accurate, and complete reporting. Today we have the most technically sophisticated data-rich information system ever. But it hasn’t satisfied our need for what Walter Lippmann called
