Never Stay Silent

In a post 9/11 America, gripped by fear and patriotic fervor, few dared to question the rush to war. “ Shock and Awe ”, Rob Reiner’s 2017 political drama, tells the story of those who did.  "Shock and Awe" Official Movie Poster The film follows a few journalists at Knight Ridder— Jonathan Landay ( Woody Harrelson ), Warren Strobel ( James Marsden ), and the editor John Walcott ( Rob Reiner ) — as they challenged the official narrative that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), a fact that if true would send the US to war against Iraq.  While the mainstream media amplified the Bush Administration’s case for war, these small-town reporters dug deeper, cross-checked sources, and posed unpopular truths. In doing so, Shock and Awe offers much more than a historical recap of the pre-war, post-9/11 era; it’s a powerful reflection on the perils of a profit-driven media and the moral obligation journalists have to speak truth to power.  In the early 2000s,...

Before they became literary giants, they were reporters – chasing deadlines, interviewing sources, and distilling messy realities into crisp, potent prose. Journalism, with its demands for precision, clarity, and truth, provided the perfect training ground for some of the world’s most revered novelists. It taught them how to see the world — not as they wished it to be, but as it was. Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway and Joan Didion didn’t leave journalism behind when they turned to books. They carried it with them, shaping fiction that still feels urgent today. Charles Dickens (1812-1870) Charles Dickens was just a teenager when he first hit the streets of London as a journalist. Working as a parliamentary sketch writer and court reporter for the Morning Chronicle , Dickens quickly learned the craft of transforming everyday misery into page-turning drama. As a novelist, Dickens' portrayal of Victorian England , its poor living conditions and inhumane workplaces, were a mirror to ...

It started with a snake. In 1754, Benjamin Franklin carved a message into the soul of American colonies with a single image: a segmented serpent labeled with the names of the scattered provinces. Beneath it lay three urgent words: The Pennsylvania Gazette, 1754 Join, or Die. Meant to rally unity during the French and Indian War , the cartoon would later resurface as a powerful symbol in the Revolutionary War , a potent early reminder that in the world of politics, journalism is just as powerful as any weapon.  Long before political columns became a fixture in newspapers, journalism was a battleground for persuasion. The Colonial Press, often partisan and polemical, carried the spirit of resistance.  The Gilder Lehrman Institute The Sedition Act of 1798 as published in the  "Columbian Centinel" In our country’s earliest years, political writing was sharper, and riskier. In 1798, President John Adams signed the Sedition Act , criminalizing any criticism of the federal gov...

IMBD  Five Star Final official movie poster released in 1931 Directed by Marvyn Leroy , Five Star Final (1931) is a hard-hitting drama that exposes the evils of tabloid journalism . The film follows Joseph Randall (played by Edward G. Robinson ), the weary editor of a struggling New York newspaper, as he is pressured into reviving a decades-old murder scandal to boost the paper’s circulation. As Randall’s staff digs into the private life of Nancy Vorhees – a woman who has long since atoned for her past– their relentless pursuit for a “good story” ultimately leads to an irreversible tragedy.  A scathing indictment of yellow journalism , Five Star Final forces its audience to confront the exorbitant cost of sacrificing one’s morality for success.  One of the film’s most striking motifs is Randall’s excessive hand-washing. While it may read today as a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), it also operates as a potent metaphor for guilt. Randall scrubs at his skin...

apnews.com   Associated Press's official logo The topic that stood out to me the most from the EOTO presentations was the Associated Press (AP), after hearing all the commotion regarding them being denied access to the White House press briefings on the news. As a journalism student, this piqued my interest. After some research, it turns out that the AP will be excluded from briefings until they agree to change their widely used AP stylebook to reflect the President’s new name for the Gulf of Mexico, the “ Gulf of America ”. In response, the AP firmly stated that as an international news agency, it “must ensure that places, names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.” In a tense stand-off between political messaging and journalistic integrity, this moment highlights just how important it is for the press to maintain editorial independence in the face of external pressure.  Founded in 1846 by a group of New York City publishers, the Associated Press was born...

Nytimes.com.   First edition of the New York Daily Times,  published on Sep. 18, 1851 When Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones founded the New York Daily Times in 1851, their ambition wasn’t to dominate American journalism—it was to offer an alternative to the sensationalist tabloids dominating the newsstands. Priced at just one cent, the paper aimed to bring credible, fact-based reporting to the masses without pandering to sensationalism .  Raymond, a former New York Tribune journalist and political ally of Abraham Lincoln , envisioned a publication that served public interests through facts, clarity, and editorial restraint.  At the time, journalism was populated with partisan newspapers tied to political parties and private interests. The Times entered this era as a “ penny paper ,” emphasizing affordability and accessibility for working-class readers in a rapidly industrializing country. Though it sought mass circulation, the Times carefully avoided th...