Frederic A.
Moritz is an independent writer who has taught and practiced
journalism since 1971.
Moritz also has an interest in "oral
histories."
His own "oral history," based partly on "interviewing
himself," is This
Journalist Becomes Part of the Story: Predicting Surprise
Attack -- Is it Negligence or an Impossible Task?
This deals with his reporting of China's 1979 invasion of
Vietnam, as well as intelligence analysis and the 9/11
attacks.
Moritz was trained as
historian, political scientist, and journalist at Oberlin
College, the University of California, Berkeley, and the
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His
experience includes an "interdisciplinary background" in
teaching, interviewing, and practicing journalism both in
the United States and overseas.
He left a Ph.D. program in political science at age 28 to
begin his journalism career by serving snacks and delivering
mail as a newsroom "copyboy" at The
Christian Science Monitor in 1971. He spent 13
years with The Monitor in Boston, California, and
Asia. To view a sample of his articles in The Monitor
going back to 1980, click here,
choose category "advanced search" and enter term "Frederic
A. Moritz."
Since 1988 he has been researching the history and methods
of American foreign correspondence focusing on how human
rights reporting can act as an international "watchdog,"
sometimes powerfully impacting US public opinion in crises
areas such as Bosnia and Iraq.
Moritz maintains a longtime interest is the relationship
between journalism and intelligence analysis. His foreign
correspondence covered the Asian origins of the "Second Cold
War," detailed in his account
of how in late 1978 he broke the the story of China's coming
invasion of Vietnam.
He used Chinese sources, his knowledge of Chinese history,
and in-depth linguistic analysis of China's diplomatic
warnings to report the military and diplomatic planning
which Beijing set into motion for its February 17, 1979
invasion. As many as 40,000 Chinese and Vietnamese died in
the lightning 29 day Chinese assault across Vietnam's
northern frontier. China sought to punish Soviet-backed
Vietnam for invading Cambodia and to warn the Soviet Union
not to intervene in China's back yard.
The research studies on the site,
American
Human Rights Reporting as a Global Watchdog, can
be downloaded as "electronic books" in .pdf files. This is
not an "advocacy site" but an effort to "bridge" a variety
of perspectives by seeking to:
*Develop an overall framework for better understanding
the economic, cultural and technological conditions under
which American media spotlight overseas abuses in a way
which impacts American attitudes, politics, and
policies.
*Spotlight the sometimes fine line between distorted
sensationalism producing stereotypes and propaganda about
overseas events and insightful exposure of overseas
brutality in a way which encourages constructive action
by governments and peoples in America and elsewhere.
*Explore the inherent selectivity of American human
rights journalism, as shaped by technology, politics,
culture, and the logic of history.
*Explore the way in which American human rights reporting
can act as a "gateway" to produce or justify war.
*Illuminate the circumstances under which American
journalists have ignored or papered over massive abuse -
such as in the cases of Hitler and Stalin.
*Examine the impact of changing technology of global
human rights reporting in media such as television and
the Internet. New technologies have cut information
barriers, helped human rights advocates gain media
attention, and visually dramatized bloody government
crackdowns and emaciating famines.
Moritz was associate professor of journalism at
Penn
State and an adjunct lecturer in Asian Studies at
Bucknell
University before teaching courses at the
University of
Maine and Unity
College in Maine.
In 2002 he was a visiting lecturer in journalism at
North
Carolina Agricultural and Technical State
University in Greensboro, North Carolina.
(Explore A&T's civil rights history in the Greensboro
Sit-In of
1960). He was visiting lecturer in journalism at
East Carolina
University, Greenville in 2003, 2004, 2005.
As Asia Correspondent for The Christian Science
Monitor from 1976 to 1981 Moritz covered developments
with global implications including the death of Mao Zedong;
the transformation of Chinese society under Deng Xiaoping;
and the normalization of US - China relations. He traveled
to and reported from China, South Korea, the Philippines,
Laos, western Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, India, Malaysia,
Singapore, Indonesia, and Australia.
Reporting included the growth of Soviet influence in
Vietnam, massive Khmer Rouge repression and human rights
abuses in Cambodia, China's growing support for the Khmer
Rouge against Vietnam, Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia, and
the political, cultural and human rights implications of the
massive outflow of Indochinese refugees to other parts of
Asia and on to the United States, Canada, Australia, and
other parts of the world.
He also was a California based national correspondent for
the Monitor, as well as a Boston-based reporter
covering the environment and other issues (1971 to 1976). In
California Moritz covered the 1976 trial of kidnapped
newspaper heiress Patricia
Hearst.
Moritz studied history and government at Oberlin College (BA
1963) and political science at the University of California,
Berkeley (MA 1964, CPhil 1968). After completion of course
work and preliminary examinations at Berkeley, he advanced
to candidacy for the Ph.D. in political science in 1968 with
major field in East Asian politics and minors in American
government and international relations.
He taught himself Chinese politics and history while an
undergraduate at Oberlin College. He studied Chinese at four
universities.
As he later recalled, "I got bored to death with academic
life while a graduate student at the University of
California, Berkeley. I finally got the chance to jump ship
when I was studying Chinese and teaching at the Chinese
University of Hong Kong in 1968. I dropped out of the Ph.D.
program, took another year of Chinese language on Taiwan,
then spent a year at Columbia's Graduate School of
Journalism to earn a MS in journalism in 1971 -- and I
haven't regretted it for a minute."
Moritz studied clawhammer
banjo with the late Dick
Fegy (below) in 1972.
Moritz studied
mountain dulcimer for six weeks with
Lorraine Lee
Hammond in Boston, 1973, then took a 35 year
"vacation" to wander the world, before returning to the
dulcimer in North Carolina in 2007.
