Moritz major research and writing is available as an online book, Overseas Crime Beat: American Human Rights Reporting as a Global Watchdog.

The bulk of his reporting and writing prior to his publications on the web is found in professional publications and in the pages of The Christian Science Monitor.

Moritz wrote approximately 1,600 news, features, and columns for The Christian Science Monitor as an environment and Boston reporter, and as national and foreign correspondent, all in the period from 1971 to 1984. As Associate Professor of Journalism at Penn State University from 1984 to 1988, Moritz continued to publish in the Monitor.  To view a sample of his articles in The Monitor going back to 1980, click here, choose category "advanced search" and enter "Frederic A. Moritz."

Moritz was a contributor to Human Rights: The Essential Reference, edited by Hilary Poole for Oryx Press, 1999.

Among works by Moritz after leaving The Christian Science Monitor are these:
 

1) "China Slaughter: His Scoop Was Heard Around the World," in Media History Digest, fall-winter 1991, pages 38-46. How an early form of human rights reporting - the yellow journalism of The World's James Creelman - projected the power of American journalism in coverage of Japanese atrocities against Chinese civilians during the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5. Creelman's "watchdog" coverage helped pressure Japan to prevent more such abuses during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 and during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 - but also served as a forgotten "prophesy" of still harsher abuses to be committed by Japan during World War II.

2) "Creelman At Port Arthur: Yellow Journalism and the Forgotten Seeds of Prophecy," paper delivered at the West Coast Journalism Historians Conference, March 1, 1991, University of California, Berkeley. An earlier academic paper version of the above.

3) "The Media Becomes Part of the Story: How Chinese and Overseas Print and TV Journalism Shaped and Were Shaped by Events at Tiananmen," paper delivered at the 19th Annual Meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Region/Association For Asian Studies, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, October 21, 1990. How adoption of "Western" techniques and approaches in the Chinese media served to encourage student rebellion, undermine the regime's ability to "telegraph" an authoritarian political line, and obscure the continuing reality of behind-the-scenes power in China.

4) "Images of Taiwan: A Survey of Attitudes Toward the Republic of China Among American Specialists on International Affairs." A computerized survey of attitudes toward Taiwan and other Asian nations among some 2000 American international relations specialists belonging to the International Studies Association (ISA). Done on contract for the Republic of China on Taiwan while a Research Associate, East Asian Studies Center, Penn State, August 1990.

5) "China's 'War On Drugs' 150 Years Ago," in The Christian Science Monitor, September 19, 1989, Opinion Page, page 19. War, defeat, and humiliation followed China's attempt to eliminate its opium problem by getting tough with the British source. President Bush has some advantages compared to China 150 years ago, but management of the drug problem is the most to be expected.

6) "China's Politics of the Environment," in The Christian Science Monitor, August 24, 1989, Opinion Page, page 18. An analysis of the role of environmental issues in the political infighting leading up to China's June 1989 crackdown on dissent. Also deals with the impact of the crackdown on the future of environmentalism in China.

7) "China Shackles Its Freer Press," in The Christian Science Monitor, August 4, 1989, Opinion Page, page 10. An analysis of how China's new hard-line regime has cracked down on the relative press freedom and media innovations brought in from the West during the last decade.

8) "Third World and Ozone Blackmail," The Christian Science Monitor, March 23, 1989, page 18. An Opinion Page piece on possibility third world countries will "blackmail" industrialized countries into more aid by threatening not to participate in international environmental programs.

9) "What's Ahead for Bush in Asia?," The MAR-Asian Messenger, February 1989, page 4. (Newsletter of the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies). An analytical essay on the impact of upcoming changes in Asia upon President Bush's global foreign policy challenges.

10) "Vietnam's China lesson - still being learned," The Christian Science Monitor, January 20, 1989, Opinion Page, page 19. An analysis of how China's "save face" willingness to "stand up" and risk wider war with both the Soviet Union (1979) and the United States (1950) is still reshaping the face of Asia - including current prospects for a political settlement in Cambodia.

11) "For the new administration, a changing road in Asia," The Christian Science Monitor, December 12, 1988, Opinion Page, page 14. President Bush faces the challenge of doing more with less as better Chinese - Soviet relations promise to shake the shape of Asia.

12) "U.S. paper helped topple a dictator," The Christian Science Monitor, international weekly edition, October 31 to November 6, 1988, page 12. How the 1988 U.S. indictments of Philippines former president Ferdinand Marcos were foreshadowed in 1985 investigative reporting by the San Jose Mercury News.

13) "Vietnam legacy echoes through '88 race," The Christian Science Monitor, November 1, 1988, Opinion Page, page 12. How ideological splits left over from Vietnam War hang over the Bush - Dukakis race.

14) "How American Media News Judgment Helped Corazon Aquino Consolidate Her Position in the American Mind," paper delivered at the 17th Annual Meeting, Mid-Atlantic Region/Association For Asian Studies, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, October 22, 1988. How and why the victory of Corazon Aquino over Ferdinand Marcos through "people power" in the Philippines met almost all major requirements for high profile coverage in American newspapers and television.

15) "An Asian war unreported because unnoticed, The Christian Science Monitor, April 4, 1988, Opinion Page, page 12. An interpretative analysis of how and why the Laos-Thailand war of January, February 1988 went unreported in the American press.

16) "On NBC's 'Changing China,'" The MAR-Asian Messenger, February 1988, pp. 7-8. An interpretive-essay on the September 25 to October 2, 1987 NBC project in which morning and evening news - including Bryant Gumbel, Jane Pauley, and Tom Browkaw - and a variety of other news and feature shows were broadcast from China. The newest method of "managing barbarian newspersons" involves invite the entire newsroom to China.

17) "China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930's and 1940's," by Stephen R. MacKinnon and Oris Friesen. A book review in the form of an interpretative essay appearing in the Winter 1987/88 edition of Bulletin China Institute in America.

18) "Malaysia restricts an activist press," The Christian Science Monitor, December 3, 1987, page 11. News story on government's claim that danger of racial violence requires crackdown on press.

19) "Keeping the Lid on Ethnic Strife in Asia," The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, June 22, 1987, page 13. A commentary on the dangers of ethnic separatism, as derived from the colonial path, in nations such as Sri Lanka, Fiji, Malaysia, and India.

20) "Fiji coup: impact goes beyond S. Pacific", in The Christian Science Monitor, May 19, 1987, page 7. News analysis on the implications of Fiji coup for Asia and the Pacific.

21) "Global powers vie in South Pacific: growing Soviet commercial ties in region worry US," The Christian Science Monitor, January 29, 1987, pp. 9-10. News analysis on the emerging power struggle among the US, the Soviet Union, Japan and Australia in the strategic waters of the South Pacific.

22) "Marxists: on their way, but to what kind of revolution?," op-ed. piece in The Christian Science Monitor, January 14, 1987, page 13. An analysis of how Filipino insurgents use the historic communist tactic of broadening their appeal through a "united front" to win "hearts and minds of the people.

23) "Protests in China: long a sign of struggle at top: current student unrest comes amid jockeying for post-Deng era," news analysis, The Christian Science Monitor, December 31, 1986, pp. 7-8. Beneath China's student demonstrations lies a power struggle at the highest levels over the future shape of China after Deng Xiaoping dies.

24) "Does history of Asian communists hold lesson for Filipino rebels?" news analysis in The Christian Science Monitor, October 2, 1986, page 12. Peace agreement between government and communists is unlikely, among other reasons, because rebels know from the entire history of Asian communism that if they lay down their arms they are vulnerable to arrest and/or execution.

25) "Bridging a too familiar gap - or falling into a new and more costly version of the same old trap," internal research memorandum circulated among editors and managers of The Christian Science Monitor while running internship program in Boston, summer, 1986. Based on closed newspaper archives and microfilms going back to 1908, a 15 page analysis of changing technology and newspaper delivery systems designed to encourage discussion of the merits of current moves toward Monitor broadcast and short-wave services. Confidential sources and internal issues preclude publication. The memorandum examines how the inherently slow delivery methods (train and ship) of an early 20th Century newspaper seeking worldwide circulation encouraged a more analytical approach for "standup" reasons. Given continued delivery weaknesses, today's newsroom efforts to be timely and ride the crests of events threaten to produce an instantly obsolescent product. Need is to avoid adaptation to speedy broadcast delivery in a way that could produce two dangers: a product that looks either stodgy and out of the news or a newsy without analytical content or perspective.

26) "'Teacher' Aquino," Benigno Aquino and the "Paradox of the Military," March 4, 1986, page 15. An Op. Ed. column in The Christian Science Monitor on the legacy of Marcos' martial law and the growing power of the military. Although Aquino's strategy was to woo the military, pro-Marcos elements in it killed him. Now the shadow of the military still hangs over the Philippines, even though it ultimately overthrew Marcos and rallied to Aquino's widow.

27) "Dateline: the Philippines", Feed/Back (The California Journalism Review), Fall, Winter, 1985-6, pp. 8 to 13. How the West Coast "provincials", the San Jose Mercury News and the San Francisco Examiner scooped international "heavies" such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. The two papers exposed Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos' covert investments in the United States. The revelations by the two competing papers were little known in the United States, until the Mercury News later won a Pulitzer. But circulation in the Philippines of reports by the two papers helped increase the domestic pressures which led to Marcos' overthrow. The Feed/Back article explains how the San Jose Mercury News series "had a direct impact on subsequent political developments in the Philippines and in the United States," in the later words of the Pulitzer jury. The Mercury News series also won a George Polk award for international reporting.

28) "Philippine Communists: How Ruthless," Op. Ed. column for The Christian Science Monitor, December 13, 1985, page 20, as part of a package including pieces by former Assistant Secretary of State John Hughes, and Congressman Steven Solarz, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, December 13, 1985. As in the cases of Iran and Cambodia, so with the Philippines the US press once again takes the easy way out and fails to do the legwork to see the possible brutality of any guerrilla-based regime that may follow President Marcos.

29) "How China and America Treat Their Smaller Southern Neighbors," an Op. Ed. column in The Christian Science Monitor, June 18, 1985, page 17. Suggests similarities and differences in how both China and the US try to "bleed" into submission their former compliant tributary states: Vietnam and Nicaragua.

30) "The American Press In Balance," an Op. Ed. column in The Christian Science Monitor, May 7, 1985, page 17. Rejects the "mea culpa" view that journalists should feel guilty and responsible for the criticism they have recently encountered.

 

 

FREDERIC A. MORITZ

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