Author Archive

Articles by Douglas McCollam | Email the Author

 

1. Behind the News

   Up and Down on the Bayou

   July 1, 2010 01:01 PM

   In the spring of 2006, about seven months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and a swath of the Gulf coast, Ashton Phelps, publisher of The Times-Picayune, gave this prognosis of his paper's future to The New York Times: "The... Continue reading

2. Review

   A Distant Echo

   January 13, 2010 07:16 PM

   Throughout the initial year of President Obama’s term, there has been much consternation over the administration’s “war” with the conservative press. With commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham taking to the airwaves to label the... Continue reading

3. Feature

   A Man in Full

   July 17, 2009 04:13 PM

   It was the birds that tipped him off. Two days before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, while the storm was still out at sea and its path remained uncertain, Garland Robinette was coming out of his neighborhood coffeehouse when he... Continue reading

4. Essay

   In the Tank

   January 23, 2009 12:00 PM

   First, allow me to confess my sins. For the last eleven years, I have made my living practicing the dark art of journalism, and while perhaps not a full-fledged member of that nefarious institution known as the msm, my byline... Continue reading

5. Cover Story

   Sulzberger at the Barricades

   July 15, 2008 09:00 AM

   Corporate annual meetings are generally drowsy affairs—a pep talk by management, some PowerPoint graphics, a little predetermined voting, all topped off by a parade of cranks to the microphones to excoriate management about their pet causes. April’s annual gathering... Continue reading

6. Essay

   Somewhere East of Eden

   March 18, 2008 09:00 AM

   The temple housing Nelson Poynter’s holy relics of journalism is located outside of downtown St. Petersburg, on a sunny chunk of Florida real estate just a stone’s throw from America’s only museum dedicated to the surrealist master Salvador Dalí.... Continue reading

7. Review

   Norman Pearlstine, Company Man

   July 26, 2007 08:30 AM

   Norman Pearlstine was not a happy camper. It was spring 2005, and for almost a year the editor-in-chief of Time Inc. had been wrestling with a pair of subpoenas issued by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald seeking notes and testimony... Continue reading

8. Second Read

   On the Rocks

   June 12, 2007 08:30 AM

   Annals of the Former World By John McPhee Farrar, Straus and Giroux 1998 I first encountered the writer John McPhee about ten years ago on a remote stretch of the Salmon River in the wilds of northern... Continue reading

9. Feature

   The Shame Game

   January 1, 2007 08:30 AM

   It was just before 3 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon last November when a contingent of police gathered outside the home of Louis Conradt Jr., a longtime county prosecutor living in the small community of Terrell, Texas, just east... Continue reading

10. Politics

    Not So Fast, Mr. Fitzgerald

    July 8, 2005 03:25 PM

    As a rule, reporters prefer to cover court cases, not argue them. So it was disturbing to see portions of my March/April CJR story, "Attack At The Source," cited by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald in his brief (140K... Continue reading