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Nicholas Lemann

Dean, Columbia Univ. School of Journalism

Nick Lemann is the Dean of the Columbia University School of Journalism and a former New Yorker staff writer. While at Harvard – where he graduated in 1976 – Lemann served as President of the Crimson. He has worked as a reporter and editor at The Washington Monthly, Texas Monthly, The Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Post, focusing primarily on national affairs.

Lemann is the author of The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America, The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy, about the SAT, and most recently, Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War, about the failure of Reconstruction. At Columbia, where he was hired as Dean of the Journalism School in 2003, Lemann implemented a two-year curriculum and has focused on teaching alternative journalistic mediums in the Internet age.

Nicholas Lemann: What is George W. Bush’s legacy?

Its hard to trust your impressions in real time, Lemann says.

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Nicholas Lemann: How will this age be remembered?

The War on Terror won’t seem nearly as important.

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Nicholas Lemann: Is the influence of special interests overblown?

The idea that we can get rid of lobbies is a myth, Lemann says.

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Nicholas Lemann: The Israel Lobby

Lemann says that their influence is exaggerated, something that makes him uncomfortable.

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Nicholas Lemann: On Mearsheimer and Walt: Did the Israel lobby take us into Iraq?

Lemann thinks that Mearsheimer and Walt couldve made a far more subtle – and stronger – point.

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Nicholas Lemann: Are two parties enough?

Lemann explains why we have two parties, and why it probably won’t change.

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How is the Internet changing politics?

The Web is just one organizing tool in a bigger toolbox, says Lemann.

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Nicholas Lemann: Are you satisfied with the state of race relations in America?

Race is no longer at the center of the national consciousness, Lemann says.

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Nicholas Lemann: Have Latinos become the new targets of racism?

Lemann has been surprised by the strength of the reaction.

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Nicholas Lemann: Bush, Clinton, Bush Clinton

The possibility less important than it seems, Lemann says.

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Nicholas Lemann: An Ahistorical Memory

Lemann says that we tend to be excessively pessimistic.

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Nicholas Lemann: Does the media have too much say on matters of national security?

The New York Times did exactly what it was supposed to do, Lemann says.

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Nicholas Lemann: Can journalists be objective?

Objectivity, Lemann says, emerges from vigorous juried conversation.

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Nicholas Lemann: Can newspapers survive the digital revolution?

Newspapers will survive, but they won’t be understood as newspapers.

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Nicholas Lemann: Are bloggers journalists?

Lemann sees bloggers as tapping into a very old tradition.

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Nicholas Lemann: What does our interest in gossip say about us?

This is nothing new, Lemann says.

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Nicholas Lemann: Is the media responsible for the war in Iraq?

This raises a larger issue of the press’ role in politics, Lemann says.

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Nicholas Lemann: How did you get into journalism?

A funny deal with a small local paper.

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Nicholas Lemann: Can journalism be taught in a classroom?

It depends on who you are, Lemann says.

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Nicholas Lemann: What challenges does the new generation of journalists face?

The new delivery system of journalism poses many new questions, Lemann says.

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Nicholas Lemann: Who are you?

Growing up in New Orleans when the city was past its prime.

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Nicholas Lemann: Growing Up Jewish in the American South

Lemann describes growing up in a community of assimilated German Jews.

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Nicholas Lemann: Are we headed for war with Iran?

“I can ask in the foreign policy world, and I get a wide range of diverse answers.”

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