Journalism & Photojournalism

Founder and Editor in Chief of the online magazine Salon, David Talbot. Last week the magazine had to lay off 13 employees because of financial problems. It was one of three online journalism sites to do so. Talbot started the magazine in 1995. Before that he was the arts and features editor of the San Francisco Examiner. Talbot is also the author of “Burning Desires: Sex in America.” This interview was conducted live before an audience and taped for broadcast.

Assistant Managing Editor of The New York Times, Allan Siegal. He oversees usage and style at the Times. A revised and expanded edition of his “The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage” (Times Books) has just been published.

Publisher of the New York Times Arthur Sulzberger Jr. He’s just been named “Publisher of the Year” by Editor and Publisher Magazine. Sulzberger’s family is one of the foremost newspaper families in the world. His great-grandfather Adolph Ochs bought the paper more than a century ago. Arthur Sulzberger Jr., was appointed publisher by his father Arthur Ochs Sulzberger in 1992.

Jon Stewart is the co-producer and anchorman of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” The show is an alternative take on the news. Previously Stewart had a part on HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show.” He also hosted Comedy Central’s “Short Attention Span Theater.”

We meet Veton Surroi (vi-TON sir-ROY), publisher of the leading independent Albanian newspaper in Kosovo, called Koha Dotire (CO-ha DE TOR-ray). Surroi has just received a democracy award from the National Endowment for Democracy, a US non profit bipartisan organization. During NATO’s bombing of Kosovo, Surroi was in hiding and his newspaper was published underground.
Description (Program)

Contributing editor for This American Life, and columnist for Salon.com, Sarah Vowell. She has a new collection of essays, “Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World” (Simon & Schuster).

Essayist and feminist journalist Barbara Ehrenreich. For three weeks last year Ehrenreich worked for a cleaning service in Portland, Maine. She writes about her experience, and the politics of house cleaning in this month's issue of Harper's magazine. The article is called "Maid to Order: The politics of other women's work" (April 2000). She is a contributing editor of Harper's. Her articles, reviews, essays and humor have appeared in Time, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and The Wall Street Journal.

Writer Ted Heller. His new book is “Slab Rat.” Heller was responsible for the famous “Separated at Birth” feature in Spy Magazine, a concept that has lived on long after the publication. His new book is a satire about a magazine staffer who will do just about anything to get ahead. Heller has also worked at a number of magazines, including Details, Premiere and Vanity Fair.

Photojournalist James Nachtwey. Ten years of his photographs taken around the world In areas of war, famine, and conflict are collected In the new book, "Inferno." (Phaidon Press). Nachtwey has been awarded the Robert Capa Gold Medal four times. The award is the highest honor among photographers and is given to those for the "best photographic reporting or interpretation from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise," and it entails a deliberate decision to go in harm's way.

New York Times Reporter Roger Cohen ("Coan") talks about national and international reaction to the far right Freedom party in Austria. Roger Cohen is the Times’ Bureau Chief in Berlin. He has also reported from Bosnia and wrote "Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo" (Random House) about covering the war in Bosnia.

Correspondent from the New York Times Moscow bureau, Celestine Bohlen (CELL-es-teen BO-lin). She'll discuss the role of the new acting Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in the conflict. Bohlen will also talk about the reaction of Russian citizens to the war.

Moscow Bureau chief for the New York Times, Michael Gordon. He's been covering the war in Chechnya. The New York Times is one of only two western news organizations allowed in Chechnya by the Russian military. Gordon also covered the Gulf war and the war in Kosovo, and is co-author of the book "The Generals' War" about the Gulf War.

We remember crime novelist George V. Higgins. He was found dead at his home on Saturday, apparently of natural causes. He was 59. He was best known for his best seller, "Friends of Eddie Coyle," published in 1972. (REBROADCAST from 9/30/1986)

Bill Siemering works for "The Open Society Institute," a group that promotes open and free societies. It is funded by the Soros Foundation. He talks about building up radio in third world countries to serve as a tool for democracy. Siemering wrote the mission and goals statement for National Public Radio and served there as its first program director. He also served as V.P. at WHYY-FM in Philadelphia.

Scott Dikkers is editor-in-chief of The Onion, an alternative weekly based in Madison, Wisconsin. He along with the editors of The Onion, have published the new book "Our Dumb Century" (Three Rivers Press) It's a parody of newspaper headlines spanning this century.

Former media critic Tom Rosenstiel, now the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, created to address the media's role in society and how journalists could do their jobs better. He'll discuss the coverage of the disappearance of John F. Kennedy Jr's plane. Rosenstiel is the former media critic for the Los Angeles Times and the chief Congressional correspondent for Newsweek magazine. Rosenstiel is also the author of "Strange Bedfellows: How Television and the Presidential Candidates Changed American politics, 1992" (Hyperion Press).

Steve Erlanger is the Central Europe and Balkans Bureau Chief for The New York Times. He reports from Prague, Czech Republic on the aftermath of the NATO bombings in Yugoslavia. During the war, he filed reports from Belgrade.

Staff writer for The Times of London, Eve Ann Prentice. She's been visiting the Balkans regularly since her first assignment there in 1978. She's reported on wars in Bosnia and Croatia. She and other journalists recently made a trip into Kosovo, led by pro-Serbian French philosopher Daniel Schiffer. During the trip, in southwest Kosovo, their party was hit by NATO bombing. Their driver and interpreter was killed in the raid.

The host and creator of "This American Life" Ira Glass. The show can be heard on 350 public radio stations nationwide. There's a new Rhino double CD: Lies, Sissies, & Fiascos: The Best of This American Life." This Friday (May 28th) IRA is a guest on "The David Letterman Show.