Reporters at major newspapers and magazines are hard to reach by telephone. Today it is increasingly hard to converse with them about timely scoops, leads, gaps in coverage, and corrections to published articles. We just started a website: Reporter’s Alert. From time to time, we will use Reporter’s Alert to present suggestions for important reporting on topics that are either not covered or not covered thoroughly. Reporting that just nibbles on the periphery won’t attract much public attention or be noticed by decision-makers.
Is the Democratic Party going to learn from their mistakes in 2022? Or it going to be the same old moribund campaigns with the same old tired consulting firms and party apparatchiks? Are they recruiting fresh leadership, focusing more on the ground game than on television ads that give 15% commissions to their consulting media…
The federal government requires all nuclear plants to have public evacuation plans in case of an emergency or radiation breach. They are supposed to be available, at request, by the citizenry. Has there ever been a drill based on these plans covering a ten mile circumference? Are they at all realistic? Important story to uncover.…
The most effective citizen movements run by students are the Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) with full-time staff and widespread community canvassing. These groups are achieving good results in consumer, environmental and other issues in need of attention. Go to USPIRG.org for more details and to see what states these PIRGS are operating in. Point…
The mainstream print press seems averse to covering proportionally the massively greater innocent Palestinian civilian toll–mounting by the hour–than the innocent civilian toll from the October 7th homicide/suicide attack. Granted, western reporters are given full access to those afflicted Israeli villages while being barred from going in to report independently on the Palestinian massacres. Recently…
Where’s the curiosity of corporate philanthropy reporters and scholars? Giant corporations deep with profits rarely give 1 percent of their pre-tax income to charity. Federal law allows them to give up to 10% and still deduct their contributions. I sent a letter, together with an author of a book on executive compensation Steve Clifford, to…
Residential postal users may wish to read an article by some reporter about why the Democratic Majority on the Postal Board of Governors is not terminating Louis DeJoy’s tenure. DeJoy was a Trump nominee, had conflicts of interest with the postal service, and yet remains in charge of reducing services and raising rates. Postal workers…
Reporters covering foreign affairs must not neglect the 20th anniversary of the Bush/Cheney criminal invasion of Iraq. There are good stories, features and editorials to be written looking back and looking at the present. See below my letter to New York Times Managing Editor Joseph Kahn. — March 9, 2023 Dear Mr. Kahn, The Times…
From its inception the World Trade Organization has frequently been violated with impunity by various nations across the planet. In the last few years, the violations have turned into a rout. There’s hardly anything left of the restrictions placed on trade barriers by the WTO. What is called “economic nationalism” has taken over and countries…
-A good subject for reporters is the massive expansion of government by waiver over the last few decades—where Congress mandates the executive branch and then gives the president a waiver authority based on vague criteria that have no boundaries other than the whim of the president. Article on this by Bruce Fein in the new…
-A good story would be about why the January 6th Committee has not subpoenaed the two top dogs—Donald Trump and Mike Pence—who have exclusive knowledge about the origins of the January 6th event. They have not indicated any intention to do so as their investigation comes to a close. Why? -Has anyone really read the…