Journalists of the Past
Many journalists have stood out of the crowd in our history. Now you will get the
chance to get to know one of the historians/ journalists of our time and our past.
Individually, your assignment will be to research one of the following journalists
and write a two to three page paper on that person. In addition, each student will give a
two to five minute presentation on his or her journalists, followed by a question/ answer
session in which the student will answer questions as though they are that journalist. The
journalists for the students to choose from are:
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Christiane Amanpour
Carl Bernstein
Edward R. Murrow
Dan Rather
Walter Winchell
Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman)
Matthew Brady
Benjamin Franklin
Elijah Lovejoy
Ethel Payne
Jacob Riis
Bob Woodward
Margaret Bourke-White
David Brinkley
Margaret Fuller
Charles Kuralt
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Ernie Pyle
Ida Tarbell
John Peter Zenger
Katie Couric
Brian Williams
Tim Hetherington/ Chris Hondros
Lara Logan
Anderson Cooper
Mandy Clark
Andy Rooney
Bill O’Reilly
Ann Curry
Scott Pelley
Roger Mudd
Greg Marinovich/ Kevin Carter/ Ken
Oosterbroek/ Joao Silva- The Bang
Bang Club
A rubric will be used to judge each of the two parts of the project.
Research Paper:
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Length of the paper – 25 pts
Content of the paper – 25 pts
Punctuation/ Structure of the paper – 25 pts
Sources of the paper – 25 pts
Final copy – 25 pts
Presentation: (subject to change)
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Length of time of the presentation – 25 pts
Knowledge presenting in the presentation – 55 pts
Knowledge presented from the questions – 20 pts
Number of questions asked/ answered – 10 pts
(Bonus points available)
Max grade for Paper and Presentation is 100.
There must be a minimum of three sources for the report. The paper must be a minimum
of two full pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 pt. A third page will be
required for the works cited page.
Time will be given in class to work on the project, but a majority of the work will have to
be done outside the classroom. The room and your teacher will be available for use
before school, after school, and during lunch, to meet your needs.
Elijah Lovejoy
1802-1837
Brave defender of freedom of the press. Lovejoy used his press in Illinois to work to
abolish slavery. Although he lost three presses to mobs who opposed his views, Lovejoy
continued “to speak, to write and to publish whatever [he pleased] on any subject.” He
was killed by an angry mob as he tried to stop them from setting fire to a warehouse
where he was storing his newly delivered fourth press.
Margaret Fuller
1810-1850
First American female foreign and war correspondent. Described in her time as “the most
remarkable and . . . greatest woman” in America, Fuller opened many doors for women
journalists. When she joined the New York Tribune as literary critic, she was the first
woman on the paper’s staff. Only two years later she fulfilled a lifelong dream of
traveling to Europe as a writer. While there she commented on social change, interviewed
political and artistic leaders, and covered current events. Not all of what she witnessed
survived. Both Fuller and her papers were lost at sea in a shipwreck on her return home.
Mathew Brady
c. 1823-1896
Pioneering photographer. After learning the daguerreotype process from artist-inventor
Samuel F. B. Morse, Brady built a successful portrait business with galleries in New
York and Washington where the public could view photographs of famous people of the
day. When the Civil War broke out, Brady got official approval to document the war. To
do the job, he hired ten other photographers, set up field units in several states, and used
large-format cameras and traveling darkrooms pulled by horse teams. Brady and his
assistants took some 3,500 photographs of the war. Brady himself captured Abraham
Lincoln and the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg on camera.
Samuel L. Clemens
1835-1910
Celebrated humorist better known as Mark Twain. Well known as a writer of novels,
shorts stories, and sketches, Clemens also worked a good part of his life as a journalist.
He learned the printer’s trade at a young age, and after a brief stint as a Mississippi
steamboat pilot and service in the Confederate army, he headed west and became a
reporter for papers in Nevada and California. Clemens’s accounts of adventures in the
Sandwich Islands and the Holy Land as a travel correspondent were also published in
newspapers as a series of travel letters. Clemens was surprised to discover on his return
that the letters had made him famous from coast to coast.
Jacob Riis
1849-1914
Reformer and famous documentary photographer. Riis was a Danish immigrant to the
United States with a knack for reporting. The New York slums became his beat. Riis
wrote about what he saw on the streets, and his stories opened people’s eyes to the
deplorable living conditions for many in the city. Riis’s writing and photographs were
true good works that helped change the city for the better.
Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman)
1867-1922
World-traveling reporter. Bly got her first newspaper job in Pittsburgh after writing an
angry letter in response to an article titled “What Girls Are Good For.” She later gave up
her Pittsburgh columns on society, theater, and art for more daring reporting for the New
York World. On one assignment she posed as a patient to investigate conditions in an
insane asylum. On another, she traveled around the world in 72 days to beat a record of
80 days for the trip. Readers were able to trace her trip in a board game issued by the
World.
H. L. Mencken
1880-1956
Influential contributor to American thought and literature. Although his father wanted
him to run the family cigar factory, Mencken’s real ambition was to be journalist. After
his father’s death he became the youngest reporter at a Baltimore paper and later pursued
a lifelong career at the Baltimore Sun. His editorial column “The Free Lance” became
one of the Sun’s most widely read features. A sharp critic, Mencken was at his best, in his
own words, when his articles were “written in heat and printed at once.”
Grantland Rice
1880-1954
One of America’s best-known and respected sports writers. Rice saw sports as life. His
column “Sportslight” appeared in more than 100 newspapers. He estimated that he wrote
1 million words a year—3,000 words a day—and traveled 15,000 miles a year to bring
stories to his readers.
Walter Winchell
1897-1972
Newspaper gossip columnist. A singer himself, Winchell got his start in journalism
writing up gossip about stars on backstage bulletin boards. Not long afterwards he was
hired as a New York drama critic and columnist. Winchell’s special style, which featured
words he coined, such as ‘cupiding’ for romance, won readers far beyond New York. At
the peak of his career, Winchell was almost as great a celebrity as the celebrities he
covered, and 800 papers carried his daily column.
Ernie Pyle
1900-1945
Perhaps the best-loved reporter of all time. Pyle covered the human side of the news in a
folksy, chatty style. With his wife, Jerry, he traveled the United States and the world in
search of stories about ordinary heroes. During World War II, Pyle mixed with soldiers in
Europe and the Pacific and followed them into battle. His columns home gave readers a
glimpse of war from what he called “the worm’s-eye view.”
Margaret Bourke-White
1904-1971
One of the world’s first and most famous photojournalists. Bourke-White used
photography to document the Great Depression and World War II, creating the photo
essay, in which one picture or a series of pictures are used to tell a story. During the
Second World War she was the only woman photographer permitted in war zones by the
U.S. Army. Capturing significant moments in the war on film, Bourke-White also
snapped memorable portraits of world leaders, such as Churchill, Stalin, and Gandhi.
Alice Dunnigan
1906-1983
Champion of efforts to end segregation. During years of teaching and other work,
Dunnigan kept alive her childhood dream to be a newspaper reporter by writing part-time
for African American papers. When she finally became a full-time newspaper
correspondent, she threw herself into her work. Her mission was to keep people informed
about the efforts to end the separation of the races in America. Though suffering
discrimination herself, Dunnigan took pride in witnessing history and, more than that, in
building the pride of African Americans during a critical period.
Ethel Payne
1911-1991
Fearless civil rights reporter. Hired by the Chicago Defender as a features writer, Payne
was drawn instead to hard news. She became the one-person Washington bureau of the
Defender during the early years of the civil rights movement. Payne tracked civil rights
developments tirelessly and skeptically. She was known to ask difficult questions even at
presidential press conferences. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 were signed by President Johnson, Payne was among the civil rights leaders
present. Her reporting had helped bring about change, as she hoped it would.
Robert Capa
1913-1954
World-famous combat photojournalist. Firm in his belief that “if your pictures aren’t
good enough, you aren’t close enough,” Capa put himself in the middle of the action. His
photographs of soldiers in the trenches during the Spanish civil war made him famous
around the world. Later assignments involved landing in France with the first wave of DDay forces and jumping with paratroopers into Germany during World War II. Capa lost
his life in the field, killed by a mine while on assignment in Vietnam.
Katharine Graham
1917Role model for women journalists. Taking over the Washington Post after the death of
her husband, its publisher, Graham followed in the footsteps of her father, who had
bought and built the paper. Graham had no choice but to learn the newspaper publishing
business. In the process she rebuilt the paper. Graham hired Ben Bradlee, doubled the
Post’s news staff, and gave editors and reporters freedom to work independently. Under
her leadership, the Post printed the Pentagon Papers, broke the Watergate story, and
became the nation’s leading political paper.
Ben Bradlee
1921Executive editor of the Washington Post. Bradlee was actively involved in the
development of two of the Post’s biggest stories—the Pentagon Papers and Watergate.
Supported by a Supreme Court decision that upheld First Amendment guarantees of
freedom of the press, he oversaw the Post’s publication of the series of articles and “top
secret” government documents on the Vietnam War that came to be called the Pentagon
Papers. Bradlee also authorized Post staff reporters Bernstein and Woodward to work the
Watergate story.
Seymour Hersh
1937Dedicated investigative reporter. Working on his own in the late 1960s, Hersh tracked
and broke the story of the massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai by American
troops during the Vietnam War. The story was picked up by 36 newspapers as well as
news networks and news magazines and earned Hersh the Pulitzer Prize. Hersh continued
to pursue story tips as a member of the New York Times staff, breaking news of U.S. B52 bombing in Cambodia, illegal CIA spying on U.S. citizens, and CIA secret attempts to
overthrow the leader of Chile.
Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
19441943Investigative reporters who changed the way we think about politics. Washington Post
journalists Bernstein and Woodward covered the Watergate scandal as a team. From the
day of the burglary, the two developed leads and used a variety of sources to put together
the story of President Nixon’s and others’ involvement in the break-in and its cover-up.
Bernstein and Woodward’s work won a Pulitzer Prize for the Washington Post for
outstanding public service. They later published two books on Watergate: All the
President’s Men and The Final Days.
Anna Quindlen
1951Voice of the baby boomers. Even as a “little kid,” Quindlen wanted to be a writer. After
working for her high school paper and the New York Post, she landed a job at the New
York Times. Quindlen’s “Hers,” “Life in the 30s,” and “Public & Private” columns in the
New York Times were extremely popular. They captured her generation’s concerns
about various social, political, and personal issues and won her the Pulitzer Prize for
commentary in 1992.