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 …
Today, I am sharing my blog with historian Victor Davis Hanson, a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness as well as Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. In his commentary, Prof. Hanson asks the following compelling question: America went from the freest country in the world in December 2019 to …
Those of us who have been in the news business for more than a few years (for me, it’s more than 30 years) have learned a hard truth in the past decade or so: There has been a palpable shifting of the lines between what we learned journalism ideally should …
FLASH! FBI Asks Americans to Inform on Family Members and Friends What? Can that headline be correct? Regrettably, yes, it’s true! The Federal Bureau of Investigation is morphing into America’s version of Nazi Germany’s Gestapo. In a tweet on July 11, the FBI asked Americans to spy on “family members …
Well, what do you know? America is dead last among 46 nations in public trust of news media. Why am I not surprised by this? For most of my 28 years as a reporter, editor, and foreign correspondent with the Chicago Tribune, America’s news media were generally respected and trusted. …
A decade ago, when I was a professor and college dean at the University of Illinois, I picked up a book in the campus bookstore entitled: “Are We Rome?” Its message was compelling. In 262 pages, it suggested, with the persuasive and rational use of historical facts, that the United …
With “cancel culture” running amok in the United States and statues still under attack by those who insist on ascribing 21st-century values and standards to 18th and 19th-century historical figures, it was gratifying to see that Oxford’s Oriel College in the U.K., has resisted the mob’s demand to erase history …