Journalism/works

When Walter George Buehl Jr. of Delaware died on March 9 at age 80, his legacy included his family, service in the U.S. Marines, and a great sense of humor — and an obituary he wrote himself that has become an internet sensation. A conversation with Dennis Forney, publisher of Beuhl’s hometown newspaper, The Cape Gazette, looks at what Walter wrote — and why community newspapers like his are more than just “the news.”

Irwin Redlener walked to work on March 12, less than 24 hours after a gas explosion leveled two buildings in New York City and killed eight people, past the blast site to his Columbia University office where he leads the National Center for Disaster Preparedness. A discussion with Redlener examines how the news media should report — and what news consumers should expect — about such tragedies, both in their immediate aftermath and in the long term. 

AP national security reporter Robert Burns and AP Washington assistant bureau chief Wendy Benjaminson discuss Burns’s ongoing reports on the problems within the elite Air Force corps that controls the nation’s nuclear arsenal. 

Jana Winter, a reporter for FoxNews.com, discusses successfully resisting a subpoena from a Colorado court to testify about her sources in a story about the Aurora theater shooter, using New York’s stronger “shield law.”

News media photographers at the White House challenge a policy that limits their access – and that favors the “official” photographer’s work – as an improper restraint on the workings of a free press. Kevin Goldberg, lawyer for the American Society of News Editors, talks about why this kind of “image control” is drawing such heavy fire from journalists and others.

Matt Apuzzo and Dina Cappiello, lead writers for the Associated Press, discuss the AP’s Nov. 11 special report on the hidden, dirty costs on the environment of ethanol, touted as a green energy source.

A conversation with The Washington Post’s Jeff Leen and Bart Gellman, led by American University’s Jane Hall on the process, perils, and results of reporting on disclosures by Edward Snowden and others of massive surveillance programs operated by the National Security Agency.