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May 19, 2009
Current State of Investigative Reporting
Hosted by New England Center for Investigative Reporting
Newspapers across the nation are in serious trouble, pummeled by the recession, by declining revenue and readership, and by competition from round-the-clock online resources. Speaking at a reception marking the launch of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting at BU, Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and an author, speaks about the current state of investigative reporting.
Hersh observes that our most important interpersonal relationships involve trust and respect, but what we tolerate in our public life is especially telling. We have made a bad bargain, he says, in failing to hold public officials to the highest possible standards. It has become easy to avoid our moral obligations both internationally and locally. In fact, he says, some of the most “profound and avaricious behavior” occurs at the local level. Yet the propensity of news organizations to cut back on investigative reporting reflects a concern more for the bottom line than for taking risks.
The international scene should not be avoided, either, he says, because of our nation’s current economic problems. Stories about local and regional corruption, he says, connect us to the larger world and point to the dire consequences of poor leadership.
Tom Fiedler, dean of the College of Communication, and Joe Bergantino, director of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, offer opening remarks.
Hersh’s observations are followed by a question-and-answer session.
May 19, 2009, 7 p.m.
BU Castle
Video Length is 01:16:31.
About the Speaker:
Seymour Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist and author. He is a regular contributor on military and security matters to The New Yorker magazine. Hersh first gained worldwide attention in 1969 by exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, in 1970. More recently, in 2004, he alerted the American public to the military’s mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
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