Today, I am running an obituary of legendary Vietnam war correspondent Joe Galloway that appeared in the Stars & Stripes newspaper. Galloway passed away Wednesday. I hope you will take a look at it. Galloway was the quintessential war reporter–self-effacing, courageous, and honest in his powerful reporting. Ron Yates In …
Today, I am reposting a commentary I wrote while I was the Dean of the College of Media at the University of Illinois. At the time I taught classes in journalism and shared this with my students. It still resonates with me even though I wrote it about ten years …
America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan with an enemy and a people still stuck in the Middle Ages has ended. Finally. And just as it was 47 years ago in a place called Vietnam, it did not end in victory. That became clear on Sunday when Taliban forces entered Kabul essentially unimpeded by …
This has been around awhile, but I just read it again and I thought I would share it with my followers. Whether you agree or not with the prayer’s premise it seems sad that this is where we are as a country. One common misconception is that the Supreme Court …
The Vietnam War ended 47 years ago on April 30, 1975. For those of us who lived through it and the turmoil it created in the United States, it still seems like yesterday. For those of you who view the war as ancient history, here’s a chance to test your …
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is once again under attack, this time by a group of seven socialist-Democrat Senators who claimed this week that recently released material from the FBI shows the agency failed to “fully investigate” Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings after being nominated by President Donald Trump. The …
Our society seems obsessed with labels. Take the word “Hero,” for example. It is applied in the most absurd and inappropriate ways to people who don’t deserve that distinction. When Whitney Houston died in 2012, for example, I couldn’t believe people were calling her a “hero.” Why? Because she was …
I was recently interviewed online by NovelPASTimes http://www.novelpastimes.com/ a blog for Historical Fiction Lovers. Here is Part Two. What would you like readers to gain from reading your book(s)? Because the Finding Billy Battles trilogy is historical fiction and is set in the 19th and 2oth Centuries, I would like …
I was recently interviewed online by NovelPASTimes http://www.novelpastimes.com, a blog for Historical Fiction Lovers. Here is Part One. Tell us a little about what you write. I write both fiction and non-fiction. Currently, my books fall into the historical-fiction/action-adventure categories. My previous books have been journalism textbooks, a corporate …
The other day, I had a long conversation about the state of American journalism with a couple of friends. They told me, in no uncertain terms, that they don’t believe anything they hear, read, or see when it comes to the news today. “It’s all propaganda and what isn’t propaganda …