Jim Stevens

Thoughs on my career as a former editorial page editor:

I love what the word "newspaperman" implies: someone who knows a lot but lacks pretension; someone who knows how to take names and is unafraid of kicking backsides; someone who knows truth will prove ever elusive but is determined to pursue it. The quintessential newspaperman for me was the late Lars-Erik Nelson. He wrote for the New York Daily News and did his best backside kicking in, of all places, The New York Review of Books.

That kind of journalistic courage is difficult to find today. I'm not talking about physical courage, which many good journalists display daily in Iraq. I'm talking mental toughness, willingness to risk. We have very few Nelsons, few I.F. Stones, few David Halberstams and Neil Sheehans. People I consider courageous are Murray Waas at National Journal; Dan Froomkin at washingtonpost.com and niemanwatchdog.org; Warren Strobel at the McClatchy Washington bureau; and Dana Priest of the Post.

But it remains an exclusive list. The Bush administration arguably combines the worst elements of the Nixon and Johnson administrations in one. And the mainstream press has handled it with kid gloves, most powerfully on Iraq.