Over the last two decades, before his death in 2008 at the age of 58, Tim Russert had become one of the most trusted and admired figures in American television journalism. Throughout his career he spent time with presidents and popes,...

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Jeremy RennerKill the Messenger tells the story of the tragic death of Gary Webb, the controversial newspaper reporter who committed suicide in December 2004. Webb is the former San Jose Merc...

In 1952 the New Yorker published a three-part essay by A. J. Liebling in which he dubbed Chicago the "Second City." From garbage collection to the skyline, nothing escaped Liebling's withering gaze. Among the outraged respon...

When H. L. Mencken talked, everyone listened -- like it or not. In the Roaring Twenties, he was the one critic who mattered, the champion of a generation of plain-speaking writers who redefined the American novel, and the ax-swinging...

At the helm of America's most influential literary magazine for more than half a century, Harold Ross introduced the country to a host of exciting talent, including Robert Benchley, Alexander Woolcott, Ogden Nash, Peter Arno, Charles ...

The man was stubborn', writes Calvin Trillin - the second most stubborn member of the Trillin family - to begin his fond, wry, and affecting memoir of his father. Abe Trillin had the western Missouri accent of someone who had grown up...

In the early 1970s, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, Jan Wong traveled from Canada to become one of only two Westerners permitted to study at Beijing University. One day a fellow student, Yin Luoyi, asked for help getting to ...