America & the World

Each episode in the TV series Sex and the City begins with a questions, some more portentous than others. Part of the Shadow Play article series.

War and torture get the Hollywood treatment. Part of the Shadow Play article series.

Review of The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, by Nicholas J. Cull

The new head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, ostensibly dedicated to
furthering American principles, is now endangering brave journalists who
have spent their careers defending them.

A lesson from Nigeria, on balancing the blessings of modernity and the celebration of an ancestral past.

The gradual, deadly constriction of freedom in one small country.

Digital omniscience meets “the crooked timber of humanity.”

Disney is hardly alone in groveling before the gates of the Middle Kingdom.

The campus free speech wars aren’t the only threat to American higher education.

The Trump presidency is giving Americans a crash course in civics. Are we capable of sharing the lessons with the world?

What the critics get wrong about RFE-RL’s Persian language news service, Radio Farda.

VOA’s alleged mishandling of a Chinese insider’s interview shouldn’t overshadow the important work done by it and the other U.S. government-sponsored broadcasters.

And that’s with the benefit of substantial grade inflation.

And why some limits on speech are not only good but even necessary for a free society.

(Co-authored with Jeffrey Gedmin)

A memo to the new CEO of U.S. international media.

How Westerners misunderstand the Eurasian drift of former Soviet republics like Moldova.

The problem with our media isn’t “fake news.” It’s the absence of meaningful contexts for interpretation.

How serious political reporting became a luxury good amid a mass-market media circus.

(Co-authored with Jeffrey Gedmin)

President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union Address, televised January 2018 on the Daily Donald Trump (DDT) network.

(Co-authored with Jeffrey Gedmin)

Forget about North Korea and The Interview: For decades Hollywood has been censoring its own output to protect access to the Chinese market.

(Co-Authored with Jeffrey Gedmin)

A former President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a longtime
observer of America’s public diplomacy weigh in on Michael Pack’s
“Wednesday night massacre.”

America’s eternal secular messianic temptation has now alighted on gender equality.