BUENOS AIRES — Imagine you’ve just broken a story about how the president’s cronies, including members of the Supreme Court, made a mint when the government sold off state companies. You feel pretty good, right? But instead of getting a Pulitzer, you are indicted for “insulting” a Supreme Court justice. During the trial against you, […]

MOSCOW — Surprise, surprise. I landed in Washington in the last week of June just in time to learn that Gazprom-Media boss Alfred Kokh was also in town, doing some more image-polishing. My first thought upon hearing this was: “That’s the end of Ekho Moskvy. He’s here to do damage control in view of the […]

MELBOURNE, Australia — Most of the reporting we do, even the in-depth investigative projects, stretches only as far as our borders. But the real world isn’t like that. Corporations and crooks electronically shift billions of dollars around the globe in seconds, drug smuggling is an international business, and issues like global warming, sex slavery, economic […]

More than any time in recent memory, the American people have reasonable doubts about the integrity of the judicial decision-making process. When I was a network television journalist, I had the privilege of meeting or covering some of the most respected courtroom lawyers and judges in America, from Edward Bennett Williams and David Boies to […]

Thank you. It is a great pleasure to be here. Congratulations to Brant Houston of Investigative Reporters and Editors and all of the individuals and organizations in Denmark and Europe responsible for this terrific conference. It is my honor to speak to you about “Globalization and the Challenge to Investigative Reporting.” Somehow I will try […]

With no warning, in the opening paragraph of Richard Cohen’s recent column (“What Price Service?”), there it was, in black in white: “Charles Lewis, drop dead.” Not that I haven’t heard such sentiments before, sometimes in much coarser language. It is an occupational hazard as the head of the Center for Public Integrity. Given the […]

When Brad Koetz was told that his impressive sunflower yield was unfit for human consumption, he was taken aback. His healthy-looking, 250-acre crop of confection sunflowers the kind sold as snack food in your local grocery store suffered from a fungal disease, robbing him of a season of work. Because of this pest, Koetz’s crop […]

MOSCOW — So, it has happened. The so-called “tough plan” developed by the Kremlin’s top secret analytical group has been put into action. As opposed to the “mild” one that was in use before, this one envisions the quick silencing of any dissident voices — of course, with the aim of making Russia a paradise […]

LONDON — With newspaper circulation declining all over the world and TV news in crisis, what does the future hold for journalism? Is there a magic formula to restore the good old days? What is it? I was reading the other day the diaries of William Howard Russell, the great journalist who worked for The […]

Buried in the furor over former President Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich is the role the fugitive commodities trader played in supplying oil to South Africa’s apartheid government, in violation of international sanctions against the racist regime. Ironically, two leading congressional inquisitors into Clinton’s last-minute pardon Jan. 20 — Republicans Representative Dan Burton of Indiana […]

Australian past bordered on slavery and genocide By Philip Knightley January 30, 2001 LONDON — In the United States, Native American children, “Red Indians,” had been forcibly taken from their parents and placed in institutions to “civilize” them. Australia tried a different approach. In 1937, the chief protector of Aboriginals in Western Australia, A. O. […]

Longtime Australian policy: Kidnapping children from families By Philip Knightley February 8, 2001 Soon after last summer’s Olympics in Sydney, indigenous Australian senator Aden Ridgeway said the “groundswell of good feeling” from the reconciliation theme of the games and aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman’s gold medal victory, heavy with symbolism, were responsible for a new commitment […]

Nancy Aldrich has a plaque sitting on an 18-foot, floor-to-ceiling bookcase full of her most cherished items, which dominates her living room. The plaque reads, “A Superior Pilot is one who uses her Superior Judgment to avoid situations which would require her Superior Skill!” That plaque, given by a friend several years ago, sums up […]

Some of the pilots forced to retire at 60 aren’t as fortunate as their peers who have good pension plans when the bell tolls. The bust-ups of Eastern, Pan Am and several other carriers in the 1980s and 90s are still felt by these former captains, as their retirement kitties were raided by the ailing […]

Accounts of airplane “saves,” especially when veteran captains overcome the errors of less-experienced crew members, are mostly anecdotal. Their quick actions avert the crashes or injuries that would otherwise trigger public investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board, which determines what causes a crash and recommends safety measures, or the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates […]

Minutes after the TWA Boeing 727 had taken off from New Yorks LaGuardia Airport and was climbing above 10,000 feet, the flight engineer shifted his attention from the control panel to the cockpit window. He caught a glimpse of death. The jetliner inadvertently had caught up with a Beechcraft Bonanza, a single-engine, private aircraft. “The […]