Category Archives: Journalism

PressThink→ Some more personal news. (October, 2025)

2025-10-08 In June I announced that I was retiring from NYU after 39 years, but not leaving the field, or the fight for a public service press. Today I can explain what I meant by not leaving the field. I have a new job: president of News Creator Corps. Read on a …›

BuzzMachine→ The nation is lost

2025-09-22 In this terrible time, what disappoints and angers me so about my own field of journalism — to which I have devoted 50 years of my life — is its refusal to recognize fascism, to even use the word so as to explain it, and to judge Trump …›

BuzzMachine→ Len Tow

2025-08-12 We have lost a most generous soul. I have lost a benefactor, mentor, and friend. Leonard Tow died Sunday at age 97.  Len held a PhD in economic geography from Columbia and taught at Hunter and Columbia before deciding to leave for business …›

BuzzMachine→ Whither Colbert? Whither democracy

2025-07-18 Like every sane American, I am outraged that CBS/Paramount/Ellison Inc. canceled — in the true meaning of the word — Stephen Colbert, capitulating to Trump in the rapid Orbanization of American media. Here I propose what I hope come …›

BuzzMachine→ The Times’ Mamdani vendetta

2025-07-04 The Times has it out for Zohran Mamdani. The record is clear. It is time to examine receipts.  The latest attack on him is journalistically unconscionable, and so is the editors’ reaction to legitimate criticism. In a story played by its …›

BuzzMachine→ Here we go again

2025-02-06 In an endless game of lobbyists’ Whac-A-Mole, it’s a new year and here is new legislation trying to save the news. Except it’s not new. First, from Oregon, comes a rehash of bad legislation written by newspaper hedge-fund lobbyists, v …›