PATRICK LAWRENCE: Bad Faith & Blank Checks
All mainstream journalism is “embedded journalism” now, for the battlefield is everywhere, writes Patrick Lawrence in this excerpt from his new book, Journalists and Their Shadows. Some years ago, as the decline of American media became evident even among those not…
The US Press, Spooks & the Church Committee
Nineteen fifty-three was a peculiar year for The Washington Post to question the C.I.A.’s drift into activist intrigues, writes Patrick Lawrence in this excerpt from his forthcoming book, Journalists and Their Shadows. On Jan. 9, 1953, The Washington Post published an editorial we can read all…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Rape of Lady Justice
This is an open-and-shut case of the judiciary being misused to keep Trump out of the political process. Unlike during the Russiagate years, liberal authoritarians know they are operating in broad daylight this time. It is getting hard to keep track of the charges…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The USA’s Soviet-Style President
We are in for 19 months of relentless, insultingly transparent spin by way of which a patently incompetent man will be purveyed as commander in chief for another four years. Joe Biden announces — via a video, not in person…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: What Dan Ellsberg Means
The term “Fourth Estate” had taken on the dust of a neglected antique before the release of the Pentagon Papers. Afterwards it seemed possible to think again of the press as the independent pole of power required by a working democracy. …
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Press Reckoning on Russiagate
Jeff Gerth’s investigation for The Columbia Journalism Review exposes the dark heart of the news media’s coverage of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. In the autumn of 1973, Jack Anderson, the wonderful iconoclast of the Washington press corps, published…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Biden’s Secret Stash
If this president didn’t know he was in possession of classified documents, in some cases for more than a decade, he simply is not qualified to hold any public office allowing him such access. There are two things I love about the…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: War as Presentation
As the U.S. midterm elections approach, the gap between Western media’s depiction of the war in Ukraine and the actual war waged on the ground appears to be widening more dramatically. We are urged at every turn to dismiss everything Vladimir Putin…
Our Coverage of the Ukraine War
CN has been ahead of the news on Ukraine, from reporting the coup and warning of nuclear catastrophe as far back as 2015, to news of the current phase of the conflict. Help us to continue our coverage. On Feb. 23,…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Media’s Fatal Compromises
It is no longer enough to tether correspondents to the perspective of the military from whose side they report. We appear to be on the way to having wars fought — huge, bloody, consequential wars — without any witnesses. The…