Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes. Democracy no longer ends with a bang—in a revolution or military coup—but with a whimper: the slow, steady weakening of critical institutions, such as the judiciary and the press, and the gradual erosion of long-standing political norms.
Margaret Roberts demonstrates that even censorship that is easy to circumvent can still be enormously effective. Taking advantage of digital data harvested from the Chinese Internet and leaks from China’s Propaganda Department, this book sheds light on how and when censorship influences the Chinese public.
Hindman explains why the internet is not the postindustrial technology that has been sold to the public, how it has become mathematically impossible for grad students in a garage to beat Google, and why net neutrality alone is no guarantee of an open internet. He also explains why the challenges for local digital news outlets and other small players are worse than they appear and demonstrates what it really takes to grow a digital audience and stay alive in today’s online economy.
In reporting “Pain and Profit” the Dallas Morning News found that thousands of sick and disabled Texans were being denied life-sustaining drugs and treatments by the private health insurance companies hired by the state to manage their care. While these private contractors made billions of dollars from the corporate management of taxpayer-funded Medicaid, some of the most vulnerable Texans were denied critical services, equipment and treatments, often with profoundly life-altering results. As a result of the investigation the Texas legislature pledged millions of dollars to more closely regulate the system, monitor instances of denials of care, and reform the appeals process.
Learn more about how McSwane, Chavez, and the Dallas Morning News team found, investigated, and reported the story in a “how they did it” piece in The Journalist’s Resource, and a podcast interview with the reporters.
Martha Raddatz is ABC News chief global affairs correspondent and co-anchor of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. She has covered national security, foreign policy, and politics for decades – reporting from the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House, and conflict zones around the world, including Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, and numerous countries in Africa and Asia. In 2012, Raddatz moderated the Vice Presidential debate, and received the Walter Cronkite Award for excellence in political journalism with a special commendation for debate moderation. During the 2016 election, Raddatz co-moderated the Democratic and Republican primary presidential debates on ABC, as well a presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. From 1993-1998, Raddatz was the Pentagon correspondent for NPR. Prior to joining NPR, she was the chief correspondent at the ABC News Boston affiliate WCVB-TV. Raddatz has received four Emmys and numerous other awards. She is the author of The Long Road Home—A Story of War and Family, which made both The New York Times and The Washington Post bestseller lists and was made into a mini-series for TV.
The 2018 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting from the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School was awarded to Nina Martin of ProPublica and Renee Montagne of NPR for their investigative reporting series Lost Mothers.
The United States has the highest rate of maternal deaths in the developed world; NPR and ProPublica found at least half could be prevented with better care. The series tracked maternal deaths, saved lives by raising public awareness of post-birth complications, and prompted legislation in New Jersey and Texas.
“The mothers of America deserve the best medical care before, during, and after childbirth. We not only owe them that dignity—it is a moral imperative,” said Shorenstein Center Director Nicco Mele. “The state of that care, uncovered by Nina Martin and Renee Montagne’s reporting, deserves close scrutiny. The Goldsmith judges had the challenge of choosing one winner from a number of compelling, important stories this year. ‘Lost Mothers’ is undoubtedly deserving of this special recognition. An underreported story with a devastatingly human angle, their report shines a light on a problem all around us, but rarely told with such power and grace.”
Mother Jones reporter Shane Bauer spent four months working as a guard to get a deep look inside the secretive world of private prisons, exposing mismanagement. Within a few weeks, the Department of Justice announced it would end its use of private prisons and the Department of Homeland Security said it would consider doing the same.
Hamilton chronicles a record of investigative journalism’s real-world impact, showing how a single dollar invested in a story can generate hundreds of dollars in social benefits.
In Republic of Spin―a vibrant history covering more than one hundred years of politics―presidential historian David Greenberg recounts the rise of the White House spin machine, from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama. His sweeping, startling narrative takes us behind the scenes to see how the tools and techniques of image making and message craft work. We meet Woodrow Wilson convening the first White House press conference, Franklin Roosevelt huddling with his private pollsters, Ronald Reagan’s aides crafting his nightly news sound bites, and George W. Bush staging his “Mission Accomplished” photo-op. We meet, too, the backstage visionaries who pioneered new ways of gauging public opinion and mastering the media―figures like George Cortelyou, TR’s brilliantly efficient press manager; 1920s ad whiz Bruce Barton; Robert Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower’s canny TV coach; and of course the key spinmeisters of our own times, from Roger Ailes to David Axelrod.
Jorge Ramos has been the anchorman for Noticiero Univision since 1986. He writes a weekly column for more than 40 newspapers in the United States and Latin America, and provides daily radio commentary for the Radio Univision network. Ramos also hosts Al Punto, Univision’s weekly public affairs program offering analysis of the week’s top stories, and Fusion’s AMERICA with Jorge Ramos, a news program geared towards young adults. Ramos has won eight Emmy awards and is the author of ten books, most recently, A Country for All: An Immigrant Manifesto.