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 Stadium subsidy news from Seattle & New York - August 17
The loss of David Halberstam in a traffic collision in Menlo Park, California, deprived our country of a great reporter and a great man. His journalistic sweep, manifested through original writings in articles, books and interviews, came with a knowledge of historical roots to contemporary events. He went to where the stories, the people, the pathos and the heroics were – no secondary sources for him. He reported up the power ladder as well as down at the scenes of suffering by the powerless and the voiceless. | comment
The City's Verizon Center Perk Regarding "Wizards Owner's $50 Million Request Gets Initial Approval" [Metro, April 4]: If public investment in pressing city needs were to guarantee the District's elected leaders free luxury suites at sports venues, maybe such problems would actually get some attention. But helping the have-nots doesn't come with the same benefits as serving the haves. The D.C. Council has given its initial approval to accept free luxury suite accommodations as part of a deal to send $50 million in public funding to Abe Pollin to underwrite improvements at Verizon Center. | comment
Dear Mr. James: Congratulations on your continued success as one of the NBA’s elite players. Perhaps basketball fans across the world will be able to watch you and the Cavs in the Finals very soon. As someone who participates in many generous charitable activities, we hope you will be responsive to this appeal. | comment
"As reported by Mark Segraves of WTOP, Mayor Adrian Fenty and Council Chair Vincent Gray want to sell corporate naming rights to parts of DC public schools." | comment
In the Public Interest "As we settle-in to cheer on our favorite college football teams this bowl season, it's important to remember that an undisputed consolidation of power and money -- the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) -- controls which schools play in the major bowl games and National Championship game." | comment |
In Memory of David Halberstam
In the Public Interest
Anybody who played schoolboy sandlot baseball in Winsted, Connecticut with David Halberstam back in the nineteen forties would not have been very surprised to observe his spectacular journalistic career that took him to the civil rights struggles in the South, the war torn African and Asian continents, and the writing of some 20 books which required aggressive reporting.
Young David ran and played the bases with a ferocious enthusiasm. Even then I recall noticing that he loved to skewer any boy whose boasting was not up to his playing performance. Over half a century many powerful people learned about that trait of David’s firsthand.
After graduating Harvard where he was managing editor of The Crimson, the student newspaper, David was a relentlessly truth telling star reporter for the New York Times in the Congo and Vietnam. So much so that President John F. Kennedy urged the Times’ Publisher to reassign him from Vietnam where his reports on official cover-ups and lying regarding the state of the war there were infuriating the Generals and their visiting politicians.
The Publisher said no way and David won the Pulitzer Prize for his intrepid and accurate reporting in Vietnam.
As impressive as the span covered by his articles and best-selling books were-two volumes on the Vietnam War, books on civil rights, the auto industry, the mass media, sports and a forthcoming book on the lessons of the Korean War, it was his legwork and moral and physical courage that marked him, in ABC TV’s Jim Wooten’s words, “as the best reporter in the past 50 years.”
Fellow reporter Gay Talese said “there wasn’t a lazy bone in his body.” Decade after decade, Halberstam was writing from primary sources - his deep interviews, his acute observations, his determination to always go where the action was occurring.
To seek the facts, the truth of murky, tense situations, he took on the Army, the White House, his newspaper, the New York Times, or anyone who displayed breaches of trust, secrecy or cover-ups denying the public’s right to know. . . .
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Scott Soshnick, "Boo, Hiss! Sports Fans' Outrage Going Nowhere," Bloomberg News, July 30, 2007. Ralph Nader, "In Memory of David Halberstam," Common Dreams, June 2, 2007. Dave Zirin, "Being Ali Or Being Owned: An Open Letter to LeBron," Edge of Sports, May 17, 2007. Bethlehem Shoals, "LeBron, Damon Jones Not Into Activism" AOL Sports, May 17, 2007. Bethlehem Shoals, "Cavs' Newble Takes Up Darfur Cause" AOL Sports, May 10, 2007. Paul Street, "Imus Humiliated? Big Deal," ZNet, April 21, 2007. Ralph Nader, "Outrageous Words, Outrageous Deeds" Common Dreams, April 16, 2007. Jim Armstrong, "Game of deception," Denver Post, April 15, 2007. Shawn McCarthy, "The City's Verizon Center Perk," Washington Post, April 9, 2007. Chris Perkins, "Look elsewhere," Palm Beach Post (FL), April 8, 2007. |
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Ralph Nader, founder
League of Fans is a project of the Center for Study of Responsive Law, a nonprofit Ralph Nader organization that supports and conducts a wide variety of research and educational projects to encourage the political, economic and social institutions of this country to be more aware of the needs of the citizen-consumer.
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Statement of Ralph Nader on the Death of David Halberstam -