mark feldstein
Associate Professor of Media and Public
Affairs
Director, Journalism Oral History Project
Phone: (202) 994-4632
Fax: (202) 994-5806
E-mail: feldy@gwu.edu
Office: MPA 411
Expertise
Journalism history and ethics, media law (including subpoenas
of reporters), broadcast news, investigative reporting, free speech,
and freedom of expression.
Courses Taught
SMPA 110, Introduction to News Writing and Reporting
SMPA 111, Advanced News Reporting
SMPA 135, Broadcast News Writing
SMPA 177, Media History
SMPA 250, History of Investigative
Reporting
Selected Works
"A Muckraking Model: Investigative Reporting Cycles in American History," Harvard International Journal of Press and Politics, v. 11, no. 12 (Spring 2006), pp. 105-120.
"The Journalistic Biography: Methodology, Analysis, Writing," Journalism Studies, (Spring 2006), 470-478.
"The Jailing of a Journalist: Prosecuting the Press for Receiving Stolen Documents," Communication Law and Policy, v.10, no. 2 (Spring, 2005), pp. 137-177.
"Kissing Cousins: Journalism and Oral History," Oral
History Review, v. 31, no. 1 (winter/spring 2004), cover story,
pp. 1-22.
“What Should Journalism and Journalism Educators Do in Response to Attacks on the Press?” Journalism Studies, v. 8, no. 1 (Spring 2007), pp. 156-8
"Fighting Quakers: The 1950s Battle Between Richard Nixon and Columnist Drew Pearson," Journalism History, v. 30, no. 2 (summer 2004), cover story, pp. 76-90.
"Watergate Revisited," American
Journalism Review, v. 26, no. 4 (Aug./Sept. 2004), pp. 60-67
“CNN’s Tailwind Tale,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, v. 48, no. 2 (Spring 2004), pp. 60-67
“Not After Reporters, Just Their Sources,” News Media and the Law, v. 30, no. 3 (Summer 2006), 13-14
"A Chilling FBI Fishing Expedition," Washington Post, April 29, 2006, A-17.
"Why You Should Care About Press Freedom," Chicago Tribune, April 23, 2006.
"Leak Riddle: Who's Playing Whom?" Washington Post (July 24, 2005), pp. B-1+.
"The Last Muckraker," Washington
Post op-ed, July 28, 2004, p. A-18.
Background
For nearly 20 years, Mark Feldstein was on the other
side of the camera as an on-air correspondent, specializing in
investigative reporting at CNN, ABC
News, NBC News, and local television
stations in Phoenix, Tampa, and Washington, D.C.
As an investigative reporter,
he has been beaten up in the U.S., detained and censored by government
authorities in Egypt, and escorted out of the country under armed
guard in Haiti.
Feldstein's work
has won more than 50 journalism awards, including broadcast journalism's most prestigious prizes: two George
Foster Peabody public service awards, the Columbia-DuPont baton
for investigative reporting, the Edward R. Murrow broadcasting
prize, and 9 regional Emmys.
His book Poisoning The Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture, will be published in September 2010.
Feldstein is regularly quoted as a media analyst by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR ("All Things Considered," "Morning Edition," "On the Media, ") CNN, ABC News, CBS Evening News, PBS "Frontline," C-Span, Al-Jazeera, Fox, BBC, CBC, the History Channel, MSNBC (“Scarborough Country”), Amy Goodman “Democracy Now,” Time, the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald, Baltimore Sun, Toronto Globe & Mail, Village Voice, Newsday, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Bloomberg, Congressional Quarterly, National Journal, The Guardian (UK), Slate and dozens of other news outlets throughout the world. Feldstein’s journalistic articles have been published in the Washington Post, Time, the Washington Monthly, and The Nation.
In the nation's capital, he was best known for his exposés of drug use and corruption by former Washington Mayor Marion Barry and his administration. His investigative reports have included subjects as varied as migrant farmworker slavery, abuses in nursing homes and halfway houses, political corruption, medical malpractice, social welfare abuses, environmental crimes, health care fraud, human rights atrocities, and police corruption. His exposés, which have appeared on Nightline, Dateline, World News Tonight, Today, CNN Presents and Inside Politics, have led to resignations, firings, multi-million dollar fines, and prison terms.
Feldstein has had extensive first-hand experience in media law. He has testified as an expert witness before Congress and in media lawsuits and been subpoenaed on numerous occasions in civil and criminal cases by prosecutors, defendants and plaintiffs. His stories involving grand jury secrecy during the federal probes of Rep. Dan Rostenkowski and Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry were cited as precedents in President Bill Clinton’s leak investigation of independent counsel Kenneth Starr. Feldstein has been a plaintiff in First Amendment lawsuits and has used hidden cameras, ambush interviews, and anonymous sources.
He has lectured at American University Law School, Duke, Georgetown, Hofstra Law School, Northeastern, University of Istanbul (Turkey), University of Michigan, University of Oslo (Norway), University of Texas (Austin), and Washington and Lee universities as well as at the FBI training academy, State Department, Justice Department, Customs Service and other law, government, and journalism organizations, including media training programs in the Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Turkey.
Feldstein has won top academic awards for historical research from the American Journalism Historians Association and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. He serves as a contributing editor for Communication Booknotes Quarterly and on the editorial board of Electronic News. He is also director of George Washington University's Journalism Oral History Project, which preserves on-line the eyewitness accounts of Washington reporters who have covered politics and government in the nation's capital.
He has traveled in more than two dozen countries and lives in Bethesda, Maryland with his son and daughter.
Education
B.A., Harvard University, 1979 (Government)
Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2002 (Journalism and Mass Communication)