Friday, March 24, 2006

Here's an update on two major media players who are happily ensconced in Cambridge these days at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

Dan Okrent, (scroll down to third person) the New York Times's first public editor and the founding editor of the late, great New England Monthly, is working on a major book about Prohibition scheduled for publication in 2008. "It's a narrative history," he says. "The perfect subtitle would be 'how the hell did that happen?.''' Okrent will also be publishing a collection of his Times columns -- with some new material -- in a book titled "Public Editor Number One."

Reflecting on his tenure as the Times first ombudsman, Okrent says, with a palpable sense of relief, "It's a lovely thing to have done. It was what I expected. I knew going in that it [would be] very tense and filled with contention and with difficulty and it was."

As for life in the rarified academic air of Harvard, he says:""I think it's wonderful. It's difficult for me because I hated Harvard all my life. But I guess when you open up the candy store, it's really pretty wonderful." (For the record, Okrent is taking a course on Western music since Beethoven.)

Also at the Shorenstein Center as a visiting faculty member is former LA Times editor John Carroll (scroll down to the bottom.) While Carroll has thus far refrained from making any extensive comments in his new role, he says he is "doing a lot of research and reading," adding "I'm supposed to do some thinking and writing and give a speech or two."  Carroll will also teach a course this fall tentatively titled  "Journalism in a Time of Upheaval." (He should know. His LA Times departure is widely attributed, at least in part, to disagreements with the Tribune Company over budget and fiscal priorities.)

Like Okrent, Carroll seems to be enjoying his new environs. "I couldn't have asked for a better situation," says the Class of 1972 Nieman Fellow. Asked if much has changed in those 34 years, Carroll responds: "Not as much as you might think. That's one of the good things about Harvard."

3/24/2006 10:23:46 AM by Mark Jurkowitz | Comments [1] |  
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