Tag: threats

Nicholas Kristof says press ‘shouldn’t be neutral’ with coverage of Trump’s threats to democracy

Shelia Pearson
Nicholas Kristof says press ‘shouldn’t be neutral’ with coverage of Trump’s threats to democracy

Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

Famed New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof on Tuesday will release his memoir, “Chasing Hope: A Reporter’s Life.” In the 432-page work, which I was provided an advanced copy of, Kristof vividly recounts some of the most pivotal experiences that have made up his decades as a reporter, foreign correspondent, bureau chief, and columnist for The Gray Lady.

The book, of course, arrives as the American press still wrestles with how to cover Donald Trump and the anti-democratic movement which he leads. Kristof, having spent years reporting on repressive governments across far-flung corners of the globe, is not shy about offering the lessons he has learned covering autocrats. The American press, he writes in clear-eyed terms, “shouldn’t be neutral about upholding democracy” and must not “dispassionately observe our way to authoritarianism.”

We spoke with Kristof over email for a Q&A about this and more. Our conversation is printed below in its unedited form.

The opening scene of your memoir takes place in the Congo in 1997. You write that you thought you might lose

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How London Turned a ‘Hot Spot’ for Threats Towards Iranian Journalists

Shelia Pearson
How London Turned a ‘Hot Spot’ for Threats Towards Iranian Journalists

Iranian journalists in London have seasoned demise threats, intimidation and on the internet abuse. Just one broadcaster functioning for BBC Persian, the Persian-language branch of the BBC Globe Services, which has its headquarters in London, had her car damaged into, and her discussions with household customers were tapped.

And last month, Pouria Zeraati, a newscaster with Iran Worldwide, a Persian-language opposition Television channel that operates from Britain, was stabbed in the leg exterior his London condominium.

The three suspected perpetrators of that assault traveled to Heathrow Airport and still left the state within just several hours, according to the Metropolitan Law enforcement Service, which is responsible for policing in London.

Specialised counterterrorism officers are continue to investigating the motive behind the nonfatal stabbing of Mr. Zeraati, and the Satisfied declined to say exactly where the assailants experienced flown to. But professionals say these targeted incidents are aspect of a terrifying pattern of bodily assaults, threats and surveillance that have turn out to be a reality for several Iranian journalists performing abroad.

And London, dwelling to a quantity of Persian-language broadcasters, has turn into a “hot spot” for transnational repression, in accordance to a report published Wednesday by Reporters With no

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The threats facing student journalism haven’t gone away

Shelia Pearson
The threats facing student journalism haven’t gone away

Earlier this month, Kate McGee, of the Texas Tribune, reported on a hiring mess in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Texas A&M University. The department offered Kathleen McElroy, a former editor at the New York Times and director of the University of Texas at Austin’s journalism school, a tenured position as head of its revived journalism program—a position that McElroy accepted, to great fanfare, in a signing ceremony—only for the appointment to go awry amid a right-wing backlash. McElroy said that José Luis Bermúdez, the interim dean of the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, told her that her hiring had generated “noise” within the system due to her being “a Black woman who was at the New York Times,” which, “to these folks, [is] like working for Pravda.” Texas A&M watered down its offer to McElroy to such an extent that she eventually decided to stay put at UT Austin, where she has tenure. 

Since then, the controversy has snowballed. A few days after the Tribune’s initial report, Bermúdez resigned from his interim leadership post; a few days after that, M. Katherine Banks, the university’s president, resigned, too, citing the “distraction”

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