“I’M SORRY. I JUST CAN’T. If I appear in public and say honestly what happened with me – who knows what the fall-out may be.” Such has been the anxious response I’ve gotten so many times when, as a journalist working largely in TV, I’ve requested an on-camera interview. Continue reading “Out from the Shadows: Suicide-Attempt Survivors” »

JUST NOW AND AGAIN, specialized journalism scores a bull’s-eye hit that the mainstream media can overlook – but certainly shouldn’t.

I want to commend some dogged reporting by Marisa Taylor of Kaiser Health News, who for the past year and more has been on the trail of an egregious case of illicit medical experimentation.      Continue reading “Dogged Reporting Questions Ethics in Modern-Day Human Experimentation” »

Dateline: Cahors, France – Arriving in France and sampling European media again has been a jolt for me, in part because of dates. It’s the week of World Refugee Day and also of Juneteenth, celebrating the day (June 19th, 1865) when slavery’s abolition-order eventually found its way to deep in America’s still obdurate slave-state of Texas.

I’m settled for a few weeks now in the country that made an extraordinary gift to the USA, inspired by both slavery’s end and the grand notion of an open haven for refugees — a gift that soon became a worldwide symbol of America’s own generosity and idealism.   Continue reading “Media Coverage From Across an Ocean: ‘Plus Ça Change … ?’” »

‘ART FOR ART’S SAKE!’ is without doubt a slogan to conjure with. And sure enough, that irrepressible conjurer/playwright Tom Stoppard (left) twirls Théophile Gautier’s 19th-century notion – that art is defiantly non-utilitarian – around his bewitching wand again and again during the newest revival of his Travesties (back on Broadway since last week). Continue reading “Spellbinding Script Plus Controlled Performances Produce Life-Like Magic” »

Dateline: London  –  IS IT A JOKE AIMED AT stereotypical Britishness? Well, it is a British play … and it is about the weather. Actor and now also playwright David Haig’s tautly-named “Pressure” does indeed concern itself with weather systems – and yes, a character does acknowledge at one point the old adage that the weather “is all we British ever talk about!”    Continue reading ““Pressure” Portrays History in a Stormy Climate” »