Jay Nordlinger in Kansas City: Adventures in Journalism

About the Event

Jay Nordlinger surveys today’s media landscape with what has become frequent dismay.

“We’ve never had so much journalism and so many outlets, which is great,” the National Review senior editor says. “But politics and journalism have merged, and … I’ve seen a lot of journalists begin to act like politicians with political calculations. That’s crippling to a writer.”

“You’ve got to be free at the keyboard,” he says, “to pursue the truth as you find it.”

Nordlinger himself has gained a reputation for open-mindedness in writing about politics, foreign affairs, and the arts, among other subjects, for National Review. In an event co-presented by the Show-Me Institute, National Review Institute, The Kansas City Public Library, the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation, and Show-Me Opportunity, he looks at journalists’ roles – from reporters to columnists, critics, and editors – and the practice of straight vs. opinion journalism. And he takes stock of his profession today. What’s good, and what’s bad? How does one navigate the current media environment? Is everyone siloed?

Nordlinger, who lives in New York, writes the column “Impromptus” for NationalReview.com and is a book fellow of the National Review Institute. He’s the author of two books, Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Controversial Prize in the World and Children of Monsters: An Inquiry into the Sons and Daughters of Dictators. Selections of his work have been republished in two anthologies.

He also is a music critic for The New Criterion and the host of two podcasts, Q&A and Music for a While.