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Top 100 works of 20th century American journalism

·Kristen Wegrzyn

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The idea of sharing pertinent information with other members of society is not a new one. Journalism can be tracked back to 59 BCE in ancient Rome: The "Acta Diurna" was published and presented daily to inform the public of daily events or speeches. Not every country has embraced a free press, however, and journalists in some countries put their lives on the line to share the facts with their communities.

Journalists are often criticized for their callousness, insensitivity, or perceived bias, but it's likely the majority of people who choose the profession got into it for honorable reasons, especially considering pay is generally average, and hours can sometimes be inflexible. Regardless of their motivations—perceived or otherwise—journalists have shaped the national conversation time and time again through their efforts.

To examine the influence of journalism in the U.S., Stacker looked to New York University's 1999 list of the top 100 works of journalism of the 20th century. To develop this list, 17 outside judges were chosen to work with the faculty of the university's department of journalism to determine each piece's significance. Mitchell Stephens, acting chairman of the group, noted that the list was not intended to be the "last word on the subject." Instead, the list is an opportunity to discuss excellence in journalism, especially "at a time when journalism's failings receive most of the attention."

Read on to learn of the top 100 works of American journalism in the 20th century.

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3 / 100

#98. Crime reporting

Writer: Damon Runyon

Year: 1926

Damon Runyon made a name for himself as a sportswriter for a Hearst-run publication when he moved from Denver to New York in 1910. He eventually became known for "his vivid accounts of the shady characters who haunted its streets, arenas, racetracks, and speakeasies," according to The Denver Press Club. Runyon also covered the trial for Ruth Snyder and her lover, Henry Judd Gray, who together murdered Snyder's husband on March 20, 1927. Runyon named the case the "Dumbbell Murders."

 

4 / 100

#97. Columns on race during his tenure as editor of The Crisis

Writer: W.E.B. DuBois

Year: 1910-34

While on leave from his teaching post at Atlanta University, from 1910 to 1934, W.E.B. DuBois worked as the founding editor for The Crisis, the official publication for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). DuBois, the only African-American on the NAACP's original executive board, believed social science could help solve the civil rights crisis, and spent these years "sharing the intellectual and artistic work of people of color."

 

6 / 100

#95. "Angela's Ashes"

Writer: Frank McCourt

Year: 1996

"Angela's Ashes" is the memoir of a man born to poverty-stricken Irish immigrants in Brooklyn, New York, during the Great Depression. Frank McCourt tells the story of his survival after he, at age 4, returned to Limerick, Ireland with his family. McCourt moved back to America at age 18, published his first book at 66 years old, and was awarded the 1997 Pulitzer Prize in Biography only one year later.

 

8 / 100

#93. "Notre Dame's 'Four Horsemen'"

Writer: Grantland Rice

Year: 1924

Following a notable victory for the Notre Dame football team in 1924, New York Herald Tribune sports writer Grantland Rice penned "Four Horsemen," a relatively short set of lines known as "the most famous passage in sports journalism." Rice begins, "Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again." The iconic photograph shows the quartet of backfielders on an actual horse, which was coordinated after Rice's words were published.

 

11 / 100

#90. "Rosa Lee's Story" in the Washington Post

Writer: Leon Dash

Year: 1994

"Rosa Lee's Story" is an eight-day series published in the Washington Post from Sept. 18 to Sept. 25, 1994. Investigative new reporter Leon Dash created an intimate portrait of the daily lives of Rosa Lee Cunningham and her family. This series was Dash's "investigation of the forces surrounding the black urban underclass as seen through the experience of one woman, her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren." The publication received more than 4,600 calls in response to the story.

 

12 / 100

#89. Coverage of the "Little Scottsboro" trial

Writer: Ted Poston

Year: 1949

Ted Poston became the first African-American staff reporter at a mainstream daily newspaper when the New York Post brought him on in 1935. Poston gained recognition for his coverage of the retrial for the Scottsboro boys—nine black teenagers falsely accused of the 1931 rapes of two white women in Alabama. Poston had to cover the retrial in Decatur, Alabama, from a segregated balcony, because the court failed to recognize Poston's press credentials.


 

13 / 100

#88. Report for CBS on atrocities committed by American soldiers on the hamlet of Cam Ne in Vietnam

Writer: Morley Safer

Year: 1965

Reporting from Cam Ne, Vietnam, CBS News foreign correspondent Morley Safer brought the Vietnam War onto the screens of Americans' television sets. According to CBS: "The footage showed U.S. Marines torching thatched huts—using flamethrowers, Zippo lighters, and matches—as villagers stumbled from their homes in shock.

 

14 / 100

#87. "Mystery Train"

Writer: Greil Marcus

Year: 1975

Greil Marcus' "Mystery Train" is a collection of essays about rock 'n' roll, featuring Elvis Presley, Sly Stone, and Randy Newman. "To deal with rock & roll not as youth culture, or counterculture, but simply as American culture," Marcus wrote in 1975 of his objective. Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield said of Marcus' work: "Generations of fans have gotten their minds blown by it, as I did at a tender age."

 

15 / 100

#86. Series of articles on race for Harper's and Life magazines

Writer: Earl Brown

Year: 1942-44

"American Negroes and the War" (Harper's, April, 1942) and "The Negro Vote, 1944: A Forecast" (Harper's, July, 1944) are memoirs by Harlem politician and journalist Earl Brown. The writings include Brown's observations during his time as a public official, as well as "discussions about the way African Americans have voted in New York city and state elections [in the] 1970s."

 

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16 / 100

#85. "Picture"

Writer: Lillian Ross

Year: 1952

"Picture" by New Yorker journalist Lillian Ross is "a closely observed and completely absorbing story of how studio politics and misguided commercialism turn a promising movie into an all-around disaster." Ross follows the director and actor John Huston as he sets out to rework "The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane into a film.

 

17 / 100

#84. "McSorley's Wonderful Saloon"

Writer: Joseph Mitchell

Year: 1943

Named for one of the oldest watering holes in New York City, Joseph Mitchell's "McSorley's Wonderful Saloon" presents a collection of stories that first appeared in The New Yorker. "The stories in both books were written before World War II and they are as good now as they were when he wrote them," said New York Times writer Jimmy Breslin.

 

19 / 100

#82. "To an Anxious Friend"

Writer: William Allen White

Year: 1922

"To an Anxious Friend," published in The Emporia Gazette on July 27, 1922, won William Allen White the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. The editorial advocated for freedom of speech, with White writing, "you can have no wise laws nor free entertainment of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people."

 

20 / 100

#81. "Klan Exposed"

Writer: Herbert Bayard Swope

Year: 1921

Led by editor Herbert Bayard Swope, New York World won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for exposing the operations of the Ku Klux Klan. The front page of the paper read: "Secrets of the Ku Klux Klan exposed by the world; menace of this growing law-defying organization proved by its ritual and the record of its activities."

 

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22 / 100

#79. "Praying for Sheetrock"

Writer: Melissa Fay Greene

Year: 1991

In "Praying for Sheetrock" Melissa Fay Greene tells the story of McIntosh County, Georgia, an area that the Civil Rights Movement appeared to have no impact upon. American author, activist, civil rights leader, and the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta Scott King said of Greene's work: "An inspiring and absorbing account of the struggle for human dignity and racial equality."  

 

23 / 100

#78. "City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles"

Writer: Mike Davis

Year: 1990

"City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles" by Mike Davis "offers a dark, almost unrelievedly oppressive picture of life in a tough, hardhearted city where the ruling elite crushes the poor, whites exploit people of color, public space is turned into fortresses, police abuse the citizenry, and traffic, pollution and urban decay conquer all." Davis calls Los Angeles "the city that American intellectuals love to hate."

 

25 / 100

#76. "Here To Stay"

Writer: John Hersey

Year: 1963

"Here To Stay" is a collection of some of John Hersey's journalistic works. In the preface, Hersey wrote of his hope that the volume "will give its readers a draught of adrenalin, that bitter elixer [sic], sufficient sips of which may help put us on our guard against blunderers, tyrants, madmen and ourselves." A Kirkus Review reads: "The will to live is the connecting thread that holds together these dramatic and moving true stories of man's indomitability."

 

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26 / 100

#75. "All the President's Men"

Writer: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

Year: 1974

One of Time magazine's All-Time 100 Best Nonfiction Books, "All the President's Men" details Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's breaking-open of the infamous Watergate scandal. It was published just months prior to President Nixon's resignation. Time cites the book as "the work that brought down a presidency… perhaps the most influential piece of journalism in history."

 

28 / 100

#73. Spanish Civil War photos for Life

Writer: Robert Capa

Year: 1936

Robert Capa captured images that showed "brutal realities of combat" in the Spanish Civil War. "Capa's strategy was to repersonalize war—to emphasize that those who suffer the effects of war are individuals with whom the viewer of the photographs cannot help but identify," said author Richard Whelan in "Heart of Spain."

 

29 / 100

#72. "The Executioner's Song"

Writer: Norman Mailer

Year: 1979

"The Executioner's Song" follows the life and death of notorious murderer Gary Gilmore, who demanded his execution after the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 Georgia. Norman Mailer's work resulted in him being awarded a 1980 Pulitzer Prize.

 

31 / 100

#70. "The New Yorker Book of War Pieces"

Writer: The New Yorker

Year: 1947

"The New Yorker Book of War Pieces" is a collection of World War II writings published by The New Yorker from September 1939 to August 1946. The 562-page book features work from numerous authors, including John Hersey and A.J. Liebling.

 

33 / 100

#68. Photograph of Marines raising a U. S. flag on Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima

Writer: Joe Rosenthal

Year: 1945

Joe Rosenthal snapped the iconic photo of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima, taken Feb. 23, 1945 during World War II. CNN's Thom Patterson suggested, "The image was so inspiring that, by 1945 standards, it went viral."

 

38 / 100

#63. Documentary on Vietnam

Writer: Walter Cronkite

Year: 1968

Walter Cronkite, the anchor of "The CBS Evening News" during the Cold War, had "never taken a public position on the war"—until he returned home from Vietnam in a helicopter carrying the remains of 12 U.S. Marines. Cronkite finally shared his opinion with the public: "[I]t is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could."

 

40 / 100

#61. Account in the New York Herald-Tribune of being over Japan in a bomber when World War II came to an end

Writer: Homer Bigart

Year: 1945

New York Herald-Tribune reporter Homer Bigart was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on Aug. 6, 1945. His article began: "We walked today through Hiroshima, where survivors of the first atomic-bomb explosion four weeks ago are still dying at the rate of about one hundred daily from burns and infections which the Japanese doctors seem unable to cure."

 

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41 / 100

#60. "Franks and Beans," in the New York Times

Writer: Russell Baker

Year: 1975

"Francs and Beans," by Russell Baker is "a devastating parody of gourmet cuisine first published on the Times' good, gray editorial page in 1975," according to John Goodspeed in the Baltimore Sun. "The meal opened," he writes as a just-folks gourmet, "with a 1975 Diet Pepsi served in a disposable bottle. Although its bouquet was negligible, its distinct metallic aftertaste evoked memories of tin cans one had licked experimentally in the first flush of childhood's curiosity."

 

43 / 100

#58. "What It Takes: The Way to the White House"

Writer: Richard Ben Cramer

Year: 1992

Richard Ben Cramer's 1,047-page book is on the six candidates of the 1988 presidential race: George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, Dick Gephardt, Joe Biden, Gary Hart, and Michael Dukakis. Politico's Jonathan Martin wrote: "'What It Takes: The Way to the White House,' the full title, isn't one of those pleasurable books you read once … It's just as worthwhile to dip back in and read a few pages as it is to plow through the entire thing."


 

44 / 100

#57. "Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire"

Writer: David Remnick

Year: 1993

David Remnick's work, "Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire," is his account of the Soviet Union's collapse. "The book is a collection of these interviews as well as personal recollections of a Western journalist witnessing historical change in the former Soviet Union," according to C-Span.

 

45 / 100

#56. "Titicut Follies"

Writer: Frederick Wiseman

Year: 1967

Director Frederick Wiseman's "controversial film portrays the wretched conditions at The Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane in Bridgewater, Massachusetts circa 1967." The film was banned before it 1967 New York Film Festival premiere. Wiseman said of his own work: "I like to think the movie may have contributed to [Bridgewater closing], but I actually have no idea."

 

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47 / 100

#54. "The John McPhee Reader"

Writer: John McPhee

Year: 1976

"The John McPhee Reader" is a selection of work from McPhee's first 12 books. Strand Books said of the author: "McPhee ranges over American culture with an amplitude and intelligence that marks a singular presence in American literature."

 

48 / 100

#53. Reporting from the Soviet Union for the New York Times

Writer: Harrison Salisbury

Year: 1949–54

New York Times correspondent Harrison Salisbury was awarded a 1955 Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for his article series, "Russia Re-Viewed." Salisbury's articles "made a valuable contribution to American understanding of what is going on inside Russia."

 

50 / 100

#51. Philadelphia Inquirer series: "America: What Went Wrong"

Writer: Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele

Year: 1991

Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele's 1991 nine-part series in The Philadelphia Inquirer "explained for the first time what had happened to working people in America, and why." Also published in book form in 1992, "America: What Went Wrong," exposed how public acts and private greed impacts everyone.


 

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51 / 100

#50. "Part of Our Time: Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties"

Writer: Murray Kempton

Year: 1955

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Murray Kempton brings the turbulent 1930s to life "through brilliant portraits of real persons." A review for "Part of Our Time: Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties" published by The Nation said: "In presenting his segments of history Kempton uses the technique of the novelist—and it comes off brilliantly."

 

52 / 100

#49. "America Comes of Middle Age: Columns 1950-1962"

Writer: Murray Kempton

Year: 1963

Also written by Kempton, "America Comes of Middle Age: Columns 1950-1962" is a collection of his New York Post columns. A reviewer on Goodreads wrote of Kempton: "It's a rare, rare gift to write journalism that stands as history and literature both. It is the gift Kempton had."

 

53 / 100

#48. "The Right Stuff"

Writer: Tom Wolfe

Year: 1979

Tom Wolfe's book, "The Right Stuff," is an account of the early days of the United States' manned space program. Wolfe wrote the profiles of NASA's first astronaut class—the Mercury Seven. The book also covered Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the sound barrier in 1947.

 

54 / 100

#47. "The Wayward Pressman"

Writer: A. J. Liebling

Year: 1947

A collection of articles, "The Wayward Pressman" takes its name from the regular The New Yorker column, which A.J. Liebling took over in the mid-1940s. "Liebling addresses his own affinity for newspapers, the differences between newspapers and other printed texts, and the role of the journalist in society, in addition to his evaluations of the priorities and performances of various American newspapers," according to B&B Rare Books.

 

55 / 100

#46. "A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam"

Writer: Neil Sheehan

Year: 1988

In "A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam," author Neil Sheehan "orchestrates a great fugue evoking all the elements of the war," said New York Times writer Ronald Steel. Sheehan focuses in on a man named Lt. Col. John Paul Vann, who perished in a helicopter crash in 1972 Vietnam.

 

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56 / 100

#45. "Paris Journals" in The New Yorker

Writer: Janet Flanner (Genet)

Year: 1944–45

American Janet Flanner used the pen-name "Genêt" to write her biweekly column for The New Yorker while living in Paris. Flanner was a part of the American expatriate community, which also included Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, E.E. Cummings, and Gertrude Stein. In a piece for the Paris Review, Natalia Danesi Murray said, "[Flanner's] assignment from The New Yorker was to report merely 'what the French thought was going on in France,' but she slowly added her own insight and taut analysis to what she saw, heard, and read, giving birth to that special brand of essay-reporting that made her famous."

 

57 / 100

#44. Reporting on AIDS

Writer: Randy Shilts

Year: 1981–85

Randy Shilts was the first openly gay journalist to report for a mainstream daily once he was hired at The San Francisco Chronicle in 1981. "Initially assigned to cover the gay community, his articles about an alarming new disease striking gay men were among the first reports on AIDS in the mainstream press," according to his biography.

 

59 / 100

#42. "Trash, Art, and the Movies"

Writer: Pauline Kael

Year: 1969

"Trash, Art, and the Movies," published in the February 1969 issues of Harper's Magazine, was written by New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael. "What Kael understood is that the American predilection for trash wasn't a failing of taste so much as it was a deliberate resistance to it. We hate whatever you like. She knew that deep in the American psyche and soul was an implacable contrarianism—a desire to tear down the structures the elites had erected," wrote author Neal Gabler.

 

60 / 100

#41. Photograph of a burning girl running from a napalm attack

Writer: Huỳnh Công Út

Year: 1972

Professionally known as Nick Ut, Huỳnh Công Út is the American-Vietnamese photographer that captured 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc naked, screaming, and running toward him and away from a napalm strike on June 8, 1972, 25 miles northwest of Saigon, Vietnam. Time magazine named Ut's work, "The Terror of War," as one of the 100 most iconic images that have changed the world.

 

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63 / 100

#38. "Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile"

Writer: Ralph Nader

Year: 1965

Ralph Nader's "Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile" changed the auto industry forever by calling out car makers for producing unsafe vehicles. Robert A. Lutz, who was a top executive at BMW, Ford Motor, Chrysler, and General Motors, said of Nader's work: "The book had a seminal effect … I don't like Ralph Nader and I didn't like the book, but there was definitely a role for government in automotive safety."

 

65 / 100

#36. "Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories"

Writer: Joseph Mitchell

Year: 1992

"Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories" includes a collection of Joseph Mitchell's writing for the New Yorker from 1938 to 1965. This work "will cause another melancholy soul, someone possessed by what Mr. Mitchell calls his 'graveyard humor,' to look in the waste places of the present city, listen to its lunatic ravings and report back to us, as amply and as sympathetically as Mr. Mitchell has done," wrote Verlyn Klinkenborg in The New York Times.

 

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68 / 100

#33. Journalistic reports on the Spanish Civil War

Writer: Ernest Hemingway

Year: 1937–38

Ernest Hemingway contributed 30 journalistic reports, written for the North American Newspaper Alliance, on the Spanish Civil War. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor William Braasch Watson said of this collection: ''Together, they make one thing clear. He was not, as some have asserted, a voyeur, a mere tourist of the Spanish Civil War, but a hard-working, risk-taking correspondent who tried and largely succeeded in becoming the professional reporter and witness that the violence and complexity of the war demanded."

 

69 / 100

#32. "The Road Back to Paris"

Writer: A. J. Liebling

Year: 1944

"The Road Back to Paris" is a series of dispatches A.J. Liebling sent to The New Yorker while he was covering World War II from France, England, and North Africa. Liebling focused on telling the personal stories of soldiers while expressing the wish for France's liberation.

 

70 / 100

#31. Reports on Okie migrant camp life for the San Francisco News

Writer: John Steinbeck

Year: 1936

John Steinbeck spent months living in an "Okie" migrant camp during the Great Depression for a series, published by The San Francisco News, titled "Harvest Gypsies." A term for Oklahomans, so-called Okies migrated to California during the Dust Bowl, hoping for work but facing more plight. Steinbeck's documentary work served as the basis for his best-selling novel, "The Grapes of Wrath."

 

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71 / 100

#30. Reports on the rise of Hitler in Cosmopolitan and Saturday Evening Post

Writer: Dorothy Thompson

Year: 1931–34

While working as a Cosmopolitan correspondent, Dorothy Thompson—after trying for seven years—finally scheduled an interview with Adolf Hitler, which was titled, "I Saw Hitler." Thompson called him "the very prototype of the little man," to which Hitler responded by giving Thompson 24 hours to get out of Germany.

 

72 / 100

#29. Coverage of German march into Belgium

Writer: Richard Harding Davis

Year: 1914

A classic example of war reportage, Richard Harding Davis traveled to Brussels in 1914 to cover World War I, providing a play by play of the German Army's advancements. Davis passed away only a couple of years later after suffering a heart attack in 1916.

 

73 / 100

#28. "Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families"

Writer: J. Anthony Lukas

Year: 1985

"Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families" by J. Anthony Lukas was awarded the 1986 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the American Book Award. Publishers Weekly said Lukas' work is "highly readable and brings us as close as we are likely to get to the average person's experiences of urban racial tensions.''

 

74 / 100

#27. Ten photographs from D-Day

Writer: Robert Capa

Year: 1944

Life magazine's photojournalist Robert Capa was assigned to photograph American troops as they landed on Omaha Beach on the Normandy coastline on June 6, 1944—also known as D-Day. Capa's images showed the public the view of American soldiers at war. He was famous for saying: "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."  

 

76 / 100

#25. "Dispatches"

Writer: Michael Herr

Year: 1977

"Dispatches" was written by Michael Herr and details his experiences on the front lines during the Vietnam War. Penguin Random House describes the work as "among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature." Herr also co-wrote the screenplay to Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket."

 

77 / 100

#24. "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby"

Writer: Tom Wolfe

Year: 1965

"The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby" by Tom Wolfe was published in Esquire magazine on Nov. 1, 1963. Two years later, Wolfe published his first book by the same name, which presented as a collection of essays about the '60s. The work introduced readers to new styles that veered away from elitist culture.

 

80 / 100

#21. "Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondant, 1939-1941"

Writer: William Shirer

Year: 1941

William Shirer was best known as a radio journalist for CBS, covering Germany up until the Nazi press censors made his objective approach increasingly tenuous. Fastidiously protecting the identities of his sources, he set out as the first major news figure to shine a light on to the goings on of Nazi Germany by publishing his work in 1941. He continued to chronicle and expose, bookending "Berlin Diary" in 1947 with coverage of the Nuremberg trials.

 

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81 / 100

#20. "Eichmann in Jerusalem"

Writer: Hannah Arendt

Year: 1963

Hannah Arendt, a Jew displaced by fear in the wake of the third Reich, should have no hesitation to loathe and vilify SS officer Eichmann as she examines him facing trial. Instead, the reader receives an even-handed and measured approach into the mind and motivations of a war criminal, finding him a mindless peon seeking an organization to adopt in place of a personality.

 

82 / 100

#19. "The Armies of the Night"

Writer: Norman Mailer

Year: 1968

A unique third-hand account of his own first-hand experience, Norman Mailer's nonfictional foray into the march on the Pentagon in the wake of the Vietnam War culminates in his own imprisonment and personal debate of the conflict's legitimacy. He finds himself in uncharted territory, neither for nor against—not seeing communism as the evil it was regarded at the time, and laying bare what he saw as American hypocrisy, of wanting to be the good man in search of God, and also of becoming a corporate computer.

 

83 / 100

#18. "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test"

Writer: Tom Wolfe

Year: 1968

A nuanced exploration into the beginnings of the hippie movement, Tom Wolfe took three weeks of experience and transformed it into an exploratory reasoning of acid-fuelled misadventures in "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." He chronicled collisions with figures of the beatnik movement, and referenced the people who inspired Kerouac's "On the Road." Wolfe's own take stands as a perfect example of the New Journalism style.

 

84 / 100

#17. "Eyes on the Prize"

Writer: Henry Hampton

Year: 1987

Henry Hampton's account of the Civil Rights movement, "Eyes on the Prize," is considered to be the first black perspective to be given a voice. As a teenage polio sufferer, he limped along with the early marches, not seeing the disenfranchised, poor creatures the white writers of the time reported, but rather a community of strength and purpose.

 

85 / 100

#16. "I. F. Stones Weekly"

Writer: I.F. Stones

Year: 1953–67

I.F. Stones lived through radical change as he witnessed the Depression, the devastation of World War II, and the establishment of Israel and the Korean war. His outspoken views lead to his marginalization, going from a mainstream media personality to being blacklisted from reporting. His self-published weekly newsletter became significant as he alone questioned President Lyndon B. Johnson's account of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and further criticized the Vietnam war.

 

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86 / 100

#15. "The Souls of Black Folk"

Writer: W.E.B. DuBois

Year: 1903

W.E.B. DuBois is a famous activist in his own right and was the first black man to receive a Harvard doctorate. Through a thematically linked essay structure, DuBois dissects what it means to be black in America in "The Souls of Black Folk," a work many regard as an important gift to the African-American community.

 

87 / 100

#14. "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men"

Writer: James Agee and Walker Evans

Year: 1941

Grown from an article about sharecroppers in the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression, Agee is sensitive of his privilege in the face of poverty. He is backed by Walker Evans' photos as the work in "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" moves between mundane observations and nontraditional journalism.


 

88 / 100

#13. Publication of the Pentagon Papers

Writer: The New York Times

Year: 1971

The New York Times won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service when it produced its Pentagon Papers series. The Times "acquired, analyzed, and published the secret Pentagon Papers, describing deceptions that several presidential administrations had employed to keep Americans ignorant of U.S. policy in South Vietnam."

 

90 / 100

#11. CBS Reports documentary "Harvest of Shame"

Writer: Edward R. Murrow, David Lowe, and Fred Friendly

Year: 1960

"Harvest of Shame," is a Peabody Award-winning documentary presented on CBS by Edward R. Murrow in 1960 on the day after Thanksgiving. The broadcast "is considered a milestone for its unflinching examination of the plight of migrant farmworkers in the United States," according to NPR's Elizabeth Blair.

 

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92 / 100

#9. Reports from Europe and the Pacific during World War II

Writer: Ernie Pyle

Year: 1940–45

Ernie Pyle traveled abroad to report on the Battle of Britain during World War II in 1940. "Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, read his columns daily and commented enthusiastically on them in her newspaper column, 'My Day,'" according to Warfare History Network.

 

96 / 100

#5. "The History of the Standard Oil Company" investigation

Writer: Ida Tarbell

Year: 1902–1904 (book 1904)

Ida Tarbell's father was one of the small oil producers in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania affected when John D. Rockefeller, Sr. introduced Standard Oil Company—the oil war of 1872. Three decades later Ida Tarbell produced a 19-part series of investigative reports, bringing down Standard Oil's monopoly, becoming "one of the most influential muckrakers of the Gilded Age." She also published a two-volume book called "The History of the Standard Oil Company."

 

97 / 100

#4. "This is London" radio reports for CBS on the German bombing of London. Also collected in book form.

Writer: Edward R. Murrow

Year: 1940

CBS's Edward R. Murrow reported on the daily London bombings by Nazi Germany in World War II's Battle of Britain. Murrow's reports were broadcasted to American listeners from a BBC facility in London, allowing listeners to hear the sounds of war.

 

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#3. Watergate investigations for the Washington Post

Writer: Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

Year: 1972–73

On Sunday, June 18, 1972, the Washington Post published the article, "5 Held in Plot to Bug Democrats' Office Here"—the first report on the Watergate scandal, which led to the first U.S. presidential resignation. Along with the first report, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward also authored: "Part 1: The Post investigates;" "Part 2: The government acts;" "Part 3: Nixon resigns; and "Part 4: Deep Throat revealed."


 

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