Journalism & Photojournalism

David Carr, who writes the Media Equation column for The New York Times, says that despite cuts, the future of journalism has never looked brighter. "I look at my backpack that is sitting here and it contains more journalistic firepower than the entire newsroom that I walked into 30-40 years ago," he says.

Many people who live close to gas drilling sites complain of serious illnesses. But there are few concrete data to help explain why they're getting sick. Investigative reporter Abrahm Lustgarten says weak industry regulations also make it hard to establish a clear connection between gas drilling and health effects.

NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel details what it's like to report from some of the more dangerous war zones on the planet. He also discusses his recent dispatches from Egypt and Libya, where he was subject to tear gas attacks and artillery fire.

Journalist Alissa J. Rubin has spent most of the past 10 years reporting on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On Thursday's Fresh Air, Rubin talks about the growing corruption and violence in Afghanistan, from which 33,000 U.S. troops are expected to withdraw by the summer of 2012.

New Yorker Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza spent four days with Michele Bachmann and her staff aboard their campaign jet in late June. His profile looks at the writers, beliefs and books that Bachmann has specifically mentioned as influences in her life.

New York Times reporter C.J. Chivers details what he's witnessed in Libya, where he has covered the battle between Moammar Gadhafi's forces and the opposition. Chivers has traveled with the rebels through dangerous territory and is trying to tell the true story of the war.

New York Times financial reporter Louise Story explains how guidelines issued by the Justice Department in 2008 have allowed prosecutors to take a softer approach to corporate crimes. To this day, no high-level executive has been charged in a case related to the 2008 financial crisis.

Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, recently revealed he has been living in the U.S. illegally since he was 12. "This country is not going to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants," he says. "What are we supposed to do with them?"

Pulitzer Prize-winning financial reporter Gretchen Morgenson chronicles the failings of Wall Street regulators in Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed and Corruption led to Economic Armageddon.

Area 51 is classified to the point that its very existence is denied by the U.S. government. Journalist Annie Jacobsen says it's not because of aliens or spaceships -- but because the government used the site for nuclear testing and weapons development.

The for-profit college industry has grown substantially in the past decade by targeting underprivileged students who qualify for federal loans, investigative journalist Daniel Golden says. But he says many of these students aren't getting what they hoped for out of college.

The veteran journalist's new novel takes place in an old-school print newsroom, not unlike the one where he worked. Hamill, a longtime columnist, reflects on changes in the news industry, and explains how columnists of his day differed from today's media bloggers.

ProPublica reporters Jake Bernstein and Jesse Eisinger recently won the Pulitzer Prize for their stories about the banks and hedge funds that realized what was happening to the U.S. economy while it was happening -- and then made vast fortunes by betting against the markets and creating fake demand.

The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza details President Obama's response to the ongoing uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. He explains why the president's actions — in Egypt and then in Libya — say a great deal about the administration's larger foreign policy ideology.

David Foster Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King, was recently published. But to truly enjoy his work, says critic John Powers, you must read his earlier pieces, which were filled with "a staggering eye for detail" from "a mind that was never predictable."

New York Times financial writer Diana Henriques was the first journalist to interview Bernie Madoff after he was sent to prison. Henriques' new book, The Wizard of Lies, details how Madoff created the biggest Ponzi scheme in history after playing a prominent role in shaping modern markets.

Combat photographer Joao Silva is at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he's recovering after losing his legs in an explosion in October. Greg Marinovich is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who was shot four times while covering conflicts. Silva and Marinovich talk about life as war photographers with Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

New York Times investigative journalist Walt Bogdanich discusses his ongoing series on mistakes made during radiation treatments. He also details what a patient should always ask before receiving an type of X-ray, scan or radiation treatment.

African journalist Peter Godwin returned to his native Zimbabwe in 2008 to follow the presidential election. He writes about President Robert Mugabe's refusal to give up power -- and Mugabe's torture campaign against opposition supporters -- in The Fear.

In 1992, a cargo ship container tumbled into the North Pacific, dumping 28,000 toys into the ocean. What happened to those toys led writer Donovan Hohn on a worldwide journey filled with beachcombers, oceanographers, ship captains and environmentalists.