Patrick Lawrence: Unmaking History
Every young journalist knows, and probably most newspaper readers know, too, the old thought: Journalists write the first draft of history. I like to think a few or more journalists and a few or more readers also know that this…
The Historic Collapse of Journalism
Accuracy no longer matters. Witnessing no longer matters. Conformity matters, writes Patrick Lawrence. I have never gotten over a story The New York Times ran in its Sunday magazine back in May 2016. Maybe you will remember the occasion. It was a lengthy profile of…
Patrick Lawrence: When Correspondents Came Home, Part 2
September 11 was a paradigm shifting moment in American journalism. This is the second of a two-part series examining the collapse of foreign coverage in mainstream media. Part 1 of this series can be found here. A few days after the…
“Weaponry for sale.”
Ukraine’s bottomless black market. A couple of postings back The Scrum published an exceptional piece of reportage from Donetsk City by Eva Karene Bartlett, a Canadian journalist who, extraordinarily enough in our time, does the work of a correspondent as it should be done….
Patrick Lawrence: When Correspondents Came Home
This is the first of a two-part series examining the collapse of foreign coverage in mainstream media. I have never gotten over a story The New York Times ran in its Sunday magazine back in May 2016. Maybe you will remember the occasion. It…
Patrick Lawrence: The British “Bubble of Unreality”
I am following British politics during these, Boris Johnson’s final days as prime minister, with interest. It seems that the front-runner to replace the aging boarding-school boy is Liz Truss, who currently serves as foreign secretary. The thought that Truss…
Patrick Lawrence: A Hall of Mirrors
I have long wondered whether our mainstream journalists, correspondents and commentators get dressed each morning in the same locker room, so similarly do they account for things. This has been especially so in the case of the Ukraine crisis, which…
Patrick Lawrence: All Disquiet on the Eastern Front
Have you noticed the latest coming out of Eastern Europe—the Estonians, the Lithuanians, the Latvians, the Czechs, and let us not forget the Ukrainians? Suddenly everyone thinks it is a good idea to begin shutting Russians, as in all Russians,…
Patrick Lawrence: So Far As I Can Make Out
Patrick Lawrence explores how the truth about Ukraine has turned into a recipe for anger and contempt from the Western media. So far as I can make out, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are losing their war against the Russian…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Hearts Versus Minds
There is a time-honored and destructive tradition in the U.S. of citizens approaching their political causes with blind faith. I am seeing many fewer blue-and-yellow flags in evidence during wanderings in my corner of New England. Thank goodness that didn’t last long,…