A GLOBAL PUBLISHING PHENOMENON has long fascinated me. Ranking number three among the world’s best-selling poets — after Shakespeare and Lao Tsu — is Kahlil Gibran.

The most famous and most-quoted work — certainly in the English-speaking world — from this avowedly mystical writer and artist is The Prophet, and it has never been out of print, ever since a sharp-eyed Alfred Knopf took a flyer on the young Lebanese immigrant in 1920s New York, publishing a first run of 2,000 copies.    Continue reading “Publishing’s Mystical Miracle – Enduring Legacy for Gibran” »

THE EMERGENCY that recently drew the world’s eyes to Mali, that largely arid and desperately poor country stretching from the Sahara Desert southward to the Niger River, has now left its prime position in the West’s news media, but enormous humanitarian challenges remain.

Radical Islamist forces that professed loyalty to Al Qaeda and took over the north of the country have now been expelled from power by Mali’s former colonizers, France, along with allied armies from neighboring African countries. But the human cost of the violent upheaval goes on, and needs continuing international attention for it ever to reach full resolution.    Continue reading “Media Move On – But Mali’s Misery Remains” »

LOOKING AHEAD, even by just a few days, can be a media opportunity to look back substantially and usefully.

It was no surprise to see this week that the New York Times prefigured next Tuesday’s summit meeting of the G8 countries’ top leaders. It’s the United Kingdom’s turn to host the event, and that government has made a noteworthy choice for its venue — a small Northern Irish town in County Fermanagh with the redolent name of Enniskillen.    Continue reading “Ulster in Media Spotlight Again – Now Peace Not Conflict” »

IT’S NOT PERSONAL, or indeed political. But just as David Cameron, my country-of-origin’s current prime minister, has crossed the Atlantic and come to my adopted hometown of New York, I have bolted in the opposite direction, over to the UK.    Continue reading “With Cameron Away, an Uprising of Clichés” »

THE TERRORIST ATTACK brought out some of the worst, but also much of the best in American journalism. That was true of 9/11/2001. I wish it were true of 4/15/2013 as well.

But sad to say, among all the other aching distress caused by the Boston bombing, its coverage in the major media gave us precious little of American journalism’s best work.     Continue reading “New and Old Media’s Shifting Roles After Bombing” »