"The story Marie risked her life to tell—the story that she paid with her life to tell—is one of the brutal, indiscriminate bombardment of a densely populated city, using some of the most powerful explosive weapons we know. Homs today is a city under siege where the daily civilian death toll frequently runs in the double figures."
So writes Human Rights Watch director Peter Bouckaert, in this moving piece for the Daily Beast about his friend Marie Colvin, the American-born journalist who died Wednesday in a rocket attack in Homs, Syria, along with French photojournalist Remi Ochlik.
Colvin, 56, a reporter for the Sunday Times of London, was a Long Island native, whose mother, Rosemary Colvin, told Newsday that her daughter was "totally, totally committed to what she did."
In 2001, when she was in Sri Lanka, Newsday reported, an exploding hand grenade destroyed her left eye. She chose to wear a black eye patch rather than a prosthetic -- "making her a striking figure in the field."
"I never met a person with more courage," journalist T.D. Allman wrote. "She was always on the side of truth. She was always on the side of the oppressed. She never once tired. She never once faltered."
Her editors urged her to leave Syria this week, saying it had become too dangerous, but Colvin decided to stay one more day to write a story that she felt had to be told.
It's time -- way past time, actually -- for Meryl Streep to win another Academy Award. The greatest living actress has been nominated 17 times for Oscars but has won only two, and both of them came no less than three decades ago ("Sophie's Choice" and "Kramer vs. Kramer").
Meanwhile, she keeps putting in one brilliant performance after another, with her portrayal of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in this year's "The Iron Lady" just one more example. Think of her in movies such as "Silkwood," "Out of Africa," "Julie & Julia," "The Devil Wears Prada," "Doubt" and so many more. Astonishingly, she hasn't won an Academy Award for a single one of them.
So when Sunday night's Academy Awards broadcast comes along, I'll be rooting for a small chip to be made in this massive injustice.
This Huffington Post piece on Streep by a BBC reporter attests to how well she played Thatcher.
A mini-debate is raging on Buffalonews.com about The News' coverage of the story of the brawl involving State Sen. Mark Grisanti earlier this month at the Seneca Niagara Casino.
Some readers are disgusted: "How many times does the same story have to pass from reporter to reporter? My goodness, it may be a slow day at The Buffalo News but not the rest of the world," Philip James Jarosz wrote in one online comment.
Others are satisfied and remain interested: "It was clear during Margaret Sullivan's recent online chat that people wanted more in-depth information about this incident. The News is doing in-depth reporting. Many times they are accused of not doing that. Now they are accused of doing exactly that which they are supposed to do," wrote Norm Nicastro.
One thing is certain. The coverage and commentary is being well-read. Today's story about "the woman in the purple dress" and her appearance on the casino's security video is among the five best-read articles on the website. And Jeff Simon's column on turning the incident into a movie, in today's Life & Arts section, is causing plenty of chatter.
In yesterday afternoon's news meeting, the "Have we reached the point of overkill?" question arose among the assembled editors. Gene Warner's story on the security video was considered for the front page, and compared with the other possibilities, it seemed like a natural. However, aware that we had had a great deal of coverage in the past week, we made a decision not to place the story "above the fold," or put it in the lead news position. Instead, it has a modest presence, with a small headline, at the bottom of the page.
My sense is that many readers continue to be interested in this story, and we're continuing to pursue it energetically.
Meanwhile, we're putting a lot of emphasis this week on other subjects: suburban school budgets, the cost of returning traffic to Main Street, and the best way of funding the county's libraries. Grisanti is far from the only story in town.
Literary and journalistic women are up in arms today, after a New York Times book reviewer referred to Jodi Kantor's well-regarded new book on the Obamas' marrage as "chick nonfiction."
Historian Douglas Brinkley's review of "The Obamas" appeared in Sunday's New York Times Book Review and -- while generally positive -- managed with that demeaning little phrase to tick off women across the land.
The implication, of course, is that a book about the president's marriage would only appeal to women, since they love all that frothy stuff about relationships and are too busy getting their hair streaked to worry their heads about serious policy matters.
Huffington Post Women's Editor Margaret Wheeler Johnson offers this entertaining summary of the dust-up.
Meanwhile, Salon's Rebecca Traister issued this lacerating tweet: "Metrics: multiply author's femininity by subject's femininity, divide by book sales? Dunno. Math's hard."
The Washington Post's Ezra Klein added his (lower-pitched) voice to the dissent: "Jodi Kantor’s ‘The Obamas’ is among the very best books on this White House. It’s a serious, thoughtful book on the modern presidency in general. So no, I’m not going to call it 'chick nonfiction.'
With all the cleverness and outrage flying about, Twitter quickly began a new hashtag: #chicknonfiction@twitter.com
Here's the offending review itself. The key sentences are in the second paragraph: "Call it chick nonfiction, if you will; this book is not about politics, it’s about marriage. ..."
Now, ladies, do be careful while you're doing all this heavy reading. You don't want to muss your French manicures.
This past summer, my son and I watched "All the President's Men" on DVD. As a 22-year-old law student, he was familiar with the Watergate scandal and the Washington Post's muckraking role in it, but the details were a revelation. This wasn't exactly ancient history to him, but history nonetheless.
My experience was quite different: I was watching the 1976 movie for probably the fourth or fifth time, and could practically recite the dialogue. The Watergate drama was unfolding when I was in high school. My family watched the congressional hearings together in our Lackawanna living room, and the broadcast from Washington was as riveting to us as any reality show, with members of Congress such as Barbara Jordan, Sam Ervin and Peter Rodino quickly becoming household names. It was no coincidence that soon afterward, I joined Nardin Academy's student newspaper and eventually headed off to Georgetown University. Like many a journalist who came of age in the '70s and '80s, I was inspired by the Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. (The movie still above shows Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as the pair that would become known collectively as Woodstein.)
So, I was happy to see -- as this year's Presidents Day weekend approached -- the Washington Post's Style section make "All the President's Men" its first choice in a compilation of 16 of the best presidential movies. Among the others are such great choices as "Wag the Dog," "Dave," "Primary Colors" and "The Ides of March."
With the Academy Awards approaching next Sunday, and Presidents Day celebrated Monday, the Post's slideshow of top presidential movies couldn't be more timely. Watch one of them with your kids -- or a friend's kids. Who knows? You may even inspire someone's career.
During my live chat on Thursday, a reader asked me what The News was working on related to the strange tale of State Sen. Mark Grisanti and the brawl at the Seneca Niagara Casino last weekend. I gave a vague answer, but now I can talk more concretely about it.
First off, see today's News editorial, titled "Do the public a favor," in which the Editorial Board calls for the casino to make its security video public. The editorial says, in part: "The question involves the character of the individuals involved, particularly a man elected to a high state office. The public has a compelling interest in understanding what happened in the casino a week ago, and casino officials could help that understanding. All they have to do is release the security video."
Also, on the editorial page, coming on Monday, is a strongly worded "Another Voice" piece by Seneca President Robert Odawi Porter, deploring the disparagement and racism toward his people that has resulted from the incident. Media portrayals of "Indians on the Warpath" and "Indian Whomp-'em" are, he says, "salacious stereotypes."
As for our news coverage, at least two stories are in the works for tomorrow's paper. One, an analysis by political columnist Robert J. McCarthy, assesses the damage to Grisanti's reputation and his political prospects. The first-term Republican runs for re-election this November, and Democrats hope to take full advantage of what happened. In the second, reporters Dan Herbeck and Maki Becker do their best to reconstruct the events of last Friday night on a minute-by-minute (if not blow-by-blow) basis. Many questions remain unanswered, but these stories should help.
Like many a Canadian pop-music artist, Kathleen Edwards has ardent fans in Buffalo, and I'll happily admit to being among them.
The 33-year-old Ottawa-born singer and songwriter is touring behind her new album, "Voyageur," and performed semi-locally last weekend in Hamilton and Toronto before heading to Dublin, the first stop on her European tour.
I caught her act last Friday at The Studio, a tiny venue in Hamilton, where Edwards not long ago lived and owned a home. (Edwards' new songs reflect her recent divorce from her longtime collaborator and bandmate Colin Cripps; these days, she's said to be hanging out with her new album's producer, Justin Vernon, front man of the Grammy-winning band Bon Iver.)
The show was intimate and emotional, featuring many of the songs from "Voyageur," with a smattering of earlier albums. "Asking for Flowers," from her 2008 album of the same name, was a highlight, as was her whimsical encore covering Big Star's "September Gurls."
Edwards' songs are sometimes tender, sometimes tough, and she has charisma as well as talent. American Songwriter website describes her hit-to-be "Change the Sheets" like this: "Her ghostly, oscillating 'wooo' hook is perfect for a valentine to 'margaritas and sleeping pills'. And with the insistent pleas to 'go ahead, run, run, run, run,' she’s stumbled upon her first great driving song as well."
You can hear five of Edwards' new songs on this NPR "World Cafe Live" performance and interview, recorded earlier this week in Philadelphia.
And, just for fun, here's my definitely-not-ready-for-prime-time clip of "Change the Sheets" from the Hamilton show:
I didn't know Anthony Shadid. But tonight, having just heard of the death in Syria of this brilliant Middle East correspondent for the New York Times, the only word for what I feel is heartsick.
Shadid died, apparently of an asthma attack, at age 43. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, he was one of the best foreign correspondents of his generation. Maybe, simply, the best.
My admiration for him and his work stems from two factors. First, we share a Lebanese heritage, one that he explored in his third book, "House of Stone," due to be published next month.
The other is that his reporting and writing always touched me deeply. Shadid had an uncanny ability to find the universal humanity in every situation, in every country, in every language. As Rick Gladstone wrote of his Times colleague: "Fluent in Arabic, with a gifted eye for detail and contextual writing, Mr. Shadid captured dimensions of life in the Middle East that many others failed to see." Steve Fainaru, a former Washington Post reporter who worked extensively with Shadid in Iraq, put it eloquently: "He wrote poetry on deadline."
This story from the Washington Post on Shadid's life and death includes links to the work that resulted in his second Pulitzer Prize in 2010. Both of his Pulitzer Prizes were earned while he was a reporter for the Post.
Here is New York Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson's statement about Shadid's death, from the Romenesko blog.
I had a lively back-and-forth with readers today in my second live chat on Buffalonews.com. This one was longer -- a full hour. Even so, I didn't get to answer all of the questions or acknowledge all of the comments. I plan to do this on a monthly basis. It's always interesting to hear what's on people's minds, whether it's Jerry Sullivan's hip surgery, the Occupy Buffalo movement, or the future of journalism. Click below to take a look. And thanks to all who stopped by the chat.
The tale of State Sen. Mark Grisanti's involvement in a fight at the Seneca Niagara Casino last weekend is one of the most bizarre local news stories to come along in quite a while.
Because it involves issues (or at least accusations) of race, alcohol, profane language, injury, and the involvement of well-known public figures, the publication of the story has brought up a multitude of questions over the past several days.
Editors at The News discussed and at times disagreed over how to handle aspects of the story. One of these was whether to publish statements by Seneca businessman Ross L. John that he had heard Grisanti yelling profane and racially offensive words during the altercation.
Ultimately, I felt that it was right to do so -- given that we had a named source who is a well-known Seneca businessman and tribal leader, and that we had Grisanti's response. ("I don't recall saying any racist word. That is not in my nature.")
But we chose not to make that aspect of the story the lead paragraph or the main headline Tuesday, instead emphasizing the Niagara Falls police chief's statement that he did not see a need to file charges. Grisanti's wife, Maria, suffered a concussion in the attack.
Another question was whether, and in what way, to post on our website the cellphone video provided by the lawyer of one of the Seneca businessmen involved in the scuffle, especially since the audio portion of the video was filled with profanity. The decision was to use the video footage, which we found to be believable, but to delete the audio.
The story -- which The News has been out in front on from the beginning -- is continuing. Given the high level of interest and the unusual nature of the events, other questions are likely to arise. Our guiding principle is to get as much information out to our readers and website viewers as possible, provided that it can be done responsibly.
I welcome reader response on all of this.
(Photo of Mark and Maria Grisanti by Robert Kirkham for the New York Post)
