Category: Reporter’s Notebook
-
Failed Objectives: The Press vs (?) Donald J. Trump
This is my exam week (with all the chaos that ensues). But, during a much needed break, I settled in to an important (increasingly more important) conversation by Bob Garfield, host of On the Media (on WNYC) on the press, Trump, demogagery, and —perhaps most important of all— what journalists ought to consider (in approach…
-
Shifting Sands of Academia
The demands of the academy can, at times, appear futile. This malaise is most acute when one’s ostensible “requirements” for continued professional development take them further away from the most inspiring avenues of their field. Reviewing literature for an upcoming essay, I came across a succinct (and edifying) critique leveled by international relations scholars, John Mearsheimer and…
-
Quoted: David Whyte
A life’s work is not a series of stepping- stones, onto which we calmly place our feet, but more like an ocean crossing where there is no path, only a heading, a direction, in conversation with the elements. Looking back we see the wake we have left as only a brief glimmering trace on the…
-
Under Your Feet: Cambodia, Land Mines, and Unexploded Ordinances
In a few hours, I’ll be boarding a flight from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The last few days have offered some incredible vistas —ancient wats, crumbling temples and visual proof of the tireless battle between preservation and natural decay. One of our last expeditions was to the temple of Beng Mealea, or…
-
Overheard: Venkatesh Rao
Interesting conversation with writer/thinker/consultant, Venkatesh Rao —drifting from Silicon Valley as its own (well-developed) epistemic-sociological space to the responsibility of “bloggers” [def: writers without the mediating force of editors who know more about the audience] to keep the Internet a lively and productive intellectual space.
-
History Echoes in Angkor Wat
Arriving at Angkor Wat, I turned to my wife —who had traveled here years earlier— and asked if the surroundings brought back any memories. “You see so many images [of these historic sites] it is hard to know which ones are remembered, and which aren’t,” she said, glancing briefly at a name-tagged tour group, each…
-
The Wake of Creative Madness
For a man often loathed by purists for his latitude with facts and their fictions, Hunter recognized the strictures and responsibilities of journalism-as-craft
-
Transitions
Our “fight” against terrorism is being shaped by modernity’s perfect storm: urbanization, economic inequality, corruption, political fragility, historical grievance and even climate change have seeded the grounds for an unwanted harvest. The topic seemed paradoxically too big to be, and not to be, a story. So, after months of reflection, I decided to be, and…
-
Why Media Struggles to Tell Compelling Climate Change Stories
The media has to assume even more responsibility —in navigating fact vs. fiction landscapes (more prevalent in US coverage)— but also, as a September report highlights, in providing concrete examples of how we might find solutions to our global crisis.
-
Why you need to read The Outlaw Ocean
This morning, The New York Times published the fourth installment of The Outlaw Ocean —a wide-ranging investigation into murder, exploitation, criminal pollution of waterways, and illegal fishing across our tragedy-ridden commons: the high seas.
Adam McCauley 