The following works were chosen as the 20th century's best American journalism by a panel of experts assembled by New York University's journalism department.
John Hersey: “Hiroshima,” The New Yorker, 1946
Rachel Carson:Silent Spring, book, 1962
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein: Investigation of the Watergate break-in, The Washington Post, 1972
Edward R. Murrow:Battle of Britain, CBS radio, 1940
Ida Tarbell: “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” McClure's, 1902–1904
Lincoln Steffens: “The Shame of the Cities,” McClure's, 1902–1904
John Reed:Ten Days That Shook the World, book, 1919
H. L. Mencken: Scopes “Monkey” trial, The Sun of Baltimore, 1925
Ernie Pyle: Reports from Europe and the Pacific during World War II, Scripps-Howard newspapers, 1940–1945
Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly: Investigation of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, CBS, 1954
Edward R. Murrow, David Lowe, and Fred Friendly: “Harvest of Shame,” documentary, CBS television, 1960
Seymour Hersh: Investigation of massacre by American soldiers at My Lai in Vietnam, Dispatch News Service, 1969
The New York Times: Publication of the Pentagon Papers, 1971
James Agee and Walker Evans:Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, book, 1941
W.E.B. Du Bois:The Souls of Black Folk, collected articles, 1903
I. F. Stone:I. F. Stone's Weekly, 1953–1967
Henry Hampton: “Eyes on the Prize,” documentary, 1987
Tom Wolfe:The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, book, 1968
Norman Mailer:The Armies of the Night, book, 1968
Hannah Arendt:Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, collected articles, 1963
William Shirer:Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1939–1941, collected articles, 1941
Truman Capote:In Cold Blood, book, 1965
Joan Didion:Slouching Towards Bethlehem, collected articles, 1968
Tom Wolfe:The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, collected articles, 1965
Michael Herr:Dispatches, book, 1977
Theodore White:The Making of the President: 1960, book, 1961
Robert Capa: Ten photographs from D-Day, 1944
J. Anthony Lukas:Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, book, 1985
Richard Harding Davis: Coverage of German march into Belgium, Wheeler Syndicate and magazines, 1914
Dorothy Thompson: Reports on the rise of Hitler, Cosmopolitan and Saturday Evening Post, 1931–1934
John Steinbeck: Reports on Okie migrant camp life, The San Francisco News, 1936
A. J. Liebling:The Road Back to Paris, collected articles, 1944
Ernest Hemingway: Reports on the Spanish Civil War, The New Republic, 1937–1938
Martha Gellhorn:The Face of War, collected articles, 1959
James Baldwin:The Fire Next Time, book, 1963
Joseph Mitchell:Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories, collection of much older articles, 1992
Betty Friedan:The Feminine Mystique, book, 1963
Ralph Nader:Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile, book, 1965
Herblock (Herbert Block): Cartoons on McCarthyism, The Washington Post, 1950
James Baldwin: “Letter from the South: Nobody Knows My Name,” The Partisan Review, 1959
Nick Ut: Photograph of a burning girl running from a napalm attack, The Associated Press, 1972
Pauline Kael: “Trash, Art, and the Movies,” Harper's, 1969
Gay Talese:Fame and Obscurity: Portraits by Gay Talese, collected articles, 1970
Randy Shilts: Reports on AIDS, The San Francisco Chronicle, 1981–1985
Janet Flanner (Genet):Paris Journals chronicling Paris's emergence from the Occupation, The New Yorker, 1944–1945
Neil Sheehan:A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, book, 1988
A. J. Liebling:The Wayward Pressman, collected articles, 1947
Tom Wolfe:The Right Stuff, book, 1979
Murray Kempton:America Comes of Middle Age: Columns 1950–1962, collected articles, 1963
Murray Kempton:Part of Our Time: Some Ruins and Monuments of the Thirties, book, 1955
Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele: “America: What Went Wrong?,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1991
Taylor Branch:Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963, book, 1988
Harrison Salisbury: Reporting from the Soviet Union, The New York Times, 1949–1954
John McPhee:The John McPhee Reader, collected articles, 1976
ABC: Live television broadcast of Army-McCarthy hearings, 1954
Frederick Wiseman:Titicut Follies, documentary, 1967
David Remnick:Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, book, 1993
Richard Ben Cramer:What It Takes: The Way to the White House, book, 1992
Jonathan Schell:The Fate of the Earth, book, 1982
Russell Baker: “Francs and Beans,” The New York Times, 1975
Homer Bigart: Account of being over Japan in a bomber when World War II came to an end, The New York Herald-Tribune, 1945
Ben Hecht:1,001 Afternoons in Chicago, collected articles, 1922
Walter Cronkite: Documentary on Vietnam, CBS television, 1968
Walter Lippmann: Early essays, The New Republic, 1914
Margaret Bourke-White: Photographs following the defeat of Germany, Life magazine, 1945
Lillian Ross:Reporting, collected articles, 1964
Nicholas Lemann:The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America, book, 1991
Joe Rosenthal: Photograph of Marines raising an American flag on Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima, The Associated Press, 1945
Hodding Carter Jr.: “Go for Broke,” editorial, Carter's Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville, Miss.), 1945
The New Yorker:The New Yorker Book of War Pieces, collected articles, 1947
Meyer Berger: Report on the murderer Howard Unruh, The New York Times, 1949
Norman Mailer:The Executioner's Song, book, 1979
Robert Capa: Spanish Civil War photos, Life magazine, 1936
Susan Sontag: “Notes on ‘Camp,’” The Partisan Review, 1964
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein:All the President's Men, book, 1974
John Hersey:Here to Stay, collected articles, 1963
A. J. Liebling:The Earl of Louisiana, book, 1961
Mike Davis:City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, book, 1990
Melissa Fay Greene:Praying for Sheetrock, book, 1991
J. Anthony Lukas: “The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick,” The New York Times, 1967
Herbert Bayard Swope: “Klan Exposed,” The New York World, 1921
William Allen White: “To an Anxious Friend,” The Emporia (Kan.) Gazette, 1922
Edward R. Murrow: Report of the liberation of Buchenwald, CBS radio, 1945
Joseph Mitchell:McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, collected articles, 1943
Lillian Ross:Picture, book, 1952
Earl Brown: Series of articles on race, Harper's and Life magazines, 1942–1944
Greil Marcus:Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music, book, 1975
Morley Safer: Atrocities committed by American soldiers on the hamlet of Cam Ne in Vietnam, CBS television, 1965
Ted Poston: Coverage of the “Little Scottsboro” trial, The New York Post, 1949
Leon Dash: “Rosa Lee's Story,” The Washington Post, 1994
Jane Kramer:Europeans, collected articles, 1988
Eddie Adams and Vo Suu: Associated Press photograph and NBC television footage of a Saigon execution, 1968
Grantland Rice: “Notre Dame's ‘Four Horsemen,’” The New York Herald-Tribune, 1924
Jane Kramer:The Politics of Memory: Looking for Germany in the New Germany, collected articles, 1996
Frank McCourt:Angela's Ashes, book, 1996
Vincent Sheean:Personal History, book, 1935
W.E.B. Du Bois: Columns on race during his tenure as editor of The Crisis, 1910–1934
Damon Runyon: Crime reporting, The New York American, 1926
Joe McGinniss:The Selling of the President 1968, book, 1969
Hunter S. Thompson:Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, book, 1973
