“It was a lovely day for strolling along the seashore. Men were sleeping on the sand, some of them sleeping forever. Men were floating in the water, but they didn’t know they were in the water, for they were dead.”
Ernie Pyle wrote those lines in his column describing D-Day in 1944. He was the most popular – and memorable – war correspondent during World War II. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1944. The following year, with the European Theater of Operations coming to a close, Pyle relocated to the Pacific Theater of Operations. There, on April 18, 1945, on the island of le Shima, Ernie Pyle’s pen fell forever silent. Covering the Battle of Okinawa – the last major battle of the War – the 44-year-old journalist was killed instantly in a hail of Japanese machine-gun fire.
President Harry S. Truman eulogized Pyle saying of the columnist, “No man in this war has Continue Reading “Sinclair Bashing: Talking Points Attacking the First Amendment or Merely Competitive Mudslinging?”
What Does President Trump Know and When Did He Know It?
OK, it’s also a commentary on today’s political scene, but only because it provides an instructive backdrop to the most salient points I wish to make about the art of reporting.
Let’s start with a scene from two years ago. It’s not from a political convention, it’s from a Continue Reading “What Does President Trump Know and When Did He Know It?”