Neon Nevada: Sheila Swan and Peter Laufer on the Expanded Edition

Author and poet Joan Raskin led his San Francisco Examiner review of Hank Rosenfeld’s book KSAN the Jive 95 via a chat with KSAN veteran Peter Laufer. “I was then and still am in love with radio,” Laufer told Raskin, “which is the most magical and visual of media.”

Raskin noted, “Before Laufer came to KSAN he worked at KSFO where he was fired because he refused to cut his long hair. At KSAN he was encouraged to keep his hair long.” True, as this period photograph proves (Laufer and his hair are the images on the bottom of the poster.

An early 1970s poster for the KSAN Gnus in San Francisco.

Journalists with the Crossings Institute have attended World Press Freedom Day events with Peter Laufer for 12 years, with a new group of students reporting each year. The 2023 cohort of UO School of Journalism and Communication students have diverse backgrounds and skillsets, including multimedia, writing, and social media journalism, with focuses on climate change, business, incarceration, and the Global South. Their reporting can be viewed on the Crossings site.

Peter Laufer complains about Americans in Paris in the pages of the LA Progressive.

Peter Laufer answers questions from the Authors Guild “Spotlight” series.

Peter Laufer challenged Gannett with this Inside Higher Ed op-ed that begins: “We in Eugene are witnessing the slow murder of our daily newspaper. But maybe, just maybe, what’s rapidly becoming too thin to wrap fish and line the birdcage can still be saved….” And this Eugene Weekly notice furthered the argument with: “…Gannett is in the extraction business, mining as much local wealth as it can with minimal investment.” Editor & Publisher picked up the story with this “E&P Reports” video interview.

Peter Laufer edited the student-written book Classroom 15: How the Hoover FBI Censored the Dreams of Innocent Oregon Fourth Graders. The geniuses of the book and the research, reporting, editing and writing processes are detailed in this New York Times article about the book.

Peter Laufer transcends the borders of his hometowns in The Oregon Way. Other The Oregon Way op-eds from Peter Laufer include this paean to “Oregon Nice“.

Peter Laufer suggests in the Salem (Oregon) Statesman-Jounal that the name of Lane County be change to Lane County!

Bad guy:

Good guy:

Peter Laufer philosophizes about the Slow News Movement with Sapienza University of Roma Professor Christian Ruggiero in the Italian journal MicroMega.

The Roseburg News-Review special Classroom 15 section.

The University of Oregon splashes Classroom 15 in its alumni magazine, Oregon Quarterly.

Gimnasium 14 students pose with Zack Demars.

The Times showcases Classroom 15

Peter Laufer talked turtles at Moses Zaimer’s ideacity conference in Toronto.

https://ideacity.ca/video/peter-laufer-dreaming-in-turtle/

Praise for Peter Laufer’s book is Up Against the Wall: The Case for Opening the Mexican-American Border (Anthem Press).

I love this book. Up Against the Wall is an extraordinary contribution to the Mexican immigration debate. It’s a journey to a reality that we look at every day in this country but do not see. The United States has a historic opportunity to solve this problem now, avoiding worse consequences in the future.

– Rosental Alves, director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, University of Texas

This is great reporting on a complex, delicate and controversial subject. Peter Laufer knows the American side of the border and the issue, but understands the Mexican one as well. It is a case well made for a different approach to a long-standing matter of dispute between the two countries. In the current debate about immigration in the United States, this is well worth reading.”

– Jorge G. Castañeda, former foreign minister of Mexico, professor of Latin American and Caribbean studies, New York University

Donald Trump (and all of us) must read this book to understand what walls really do for us and to us. Peter Laufer s investigation of barriers is so important at a time when we urgently need unity.

–Terry Phillips, former CBS News foreign correspondent

Peter Laufer has written a clear and compelling book, for a general audience, that develops the case for opening the Mexican-American border. The case he makes elegantly weaves his deep understanding of border issues into an eloquent narrative that is based on his journeys along the Mexican-American border. Laufer embellishes the case with his strong command of history and social science on border issues. For those asking for the best book available on why the Mexican-American border should be open, Peter Laufers Up Against the Wall is their answer.
— David Frank, professor of rhetoric, University of Oregon

This book is a highly compelling and thoughtful examination of one of the most critical issues of public importance in the 21st century. Moreover, it is a topic of enduring importance that transcends both time and place. The book is very well researched and written. The storytelling is highly engaging and immersive. It takes the reader on a powerful journey into the issue of borders and border walls and immigration, advancing understanding of the complex dynamics of the U.S. and Mexico border.”

– John Pavlik, professor of journalism and media, Rutgers University

I have spent my career debating borders, 100 percent of it on the opposite side of Peter Laufer s premise in Up Against the Wall. But whether as an inspiration for those who agree or a delightful intellectual exercise for those who don’t, this book is time very well spent.

– Mark Davis, talk show host, Salem Media Group

Fearlessly, Peter Laufer steps into the middle of the debate and states his case making points that will leave people shaking their heads. A primary text.

–  Luis Alberto Urrea, author of Across the Wire and The Devil’s Highway, professor, University of Illinois-Chicago

Peter Laufer offers a vivid chronicle of his experiences and encounters spanning many years as a veteran journalist of the US-Mexico borderlands. The stories that Laufer shares provide a resounding testament to the colossal irrationality and brutality of the border.

– Nicholas De Genova, professor, comparative cultural studies, University of Houston

Peter Laufer spoke with WorldOregon on the topic of immigration and the southern border. Watch the video of their discussion here.

Peter Laufer spoke with The Big Story on the topic of taking a news detox. Listen here.

Peter Laufer wrote a guest column for the Portland Business Journal about the impact of the 2020 Oregon wildfires on Oregonians, including himself.

Peter Laufer wrote of his his experience with kicking the endless news habit in The Globe and Mail.

Peter Laufer discusses the problem with private zoos with CNN Travel.

Peter Laufer spoke with Deseret News on the media’s role in saber-rattling rhetoric.

Peter Laufer and Shelia Swan Laufer spoke with KUNR on their project documenting neon displays in Nevada.

Peter Laufer spoke with the New York Post on the international turtle trade.

With his University of Oregon colleague Will Johnson Peter Laufer contributed this op-ed on state-sanctioned terrorism to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Mural in Argentina:

Taking a break from the World Press Freedom Day events in Riga, Latvia, Peter Laufer visited the former KGB prison in the Baltic capital city.  The reality, of course, was stark, as he reported in this Oregonian op-ed.

Riga under a springtime moon, 2015.

Fabled Utne Reader highlighted an excerpt from Peter Laufer’s Slow News in the magazine’s September 2014 issue, noting, “We can rationalize flicking on 24-hour news for a fix of what’s supposedly important; there may be something happening that’s important to know.”

The image the Utne Reader chose to illustrate the excerpt is potently mundane.

The Utne Reader caption: Award-winning journalist Peter Laufer brings wit and clarity to the news in his latest book, Slow News (Oregon State University Press, 2014). Laufer argues that both the field journalist and the home consumer can benefit from taking time to ruminate on the news. In this excerpt from Part Two, “Who Are the Media & What Are the Sources?” he suggests that turning off the 24-hour news altogether allows consumers to make their own decisions about what news is worth investigating.

Peter Laufer joined Michael Krasny on his KQED “Forum” to talk organic food with the public radio audience.  A few days earlier he did the same with Geoffrey Riley on “The Jefferson Exchange” to the Jefferson Public Radio audience.

From the book Organic:

On NPR’s “All Things Considered,” reporter Dan Charles noted how Peter Laufer’s skepticism led to the exposés in Organic: A Journalist’s Quest to Discover the Truth behind Food Labeling.

The skeptical illustration from the NPR website about Organic:

Check out the eye-catching billboard for Peter Laufer’s Organic: A Journalist’s Quest to Discover the Truth behind Food Labeling across from New York’s High Line and looking down on Chelsea’s eateries and markets:

Publishers Weekly calls Peter Laufer’s Slow News “a timely and provocative proposal for what journalist and broadcaster Laufer calls a slow news movement, featuring the author’s rules for a balanced and nutritious daily news diet beyond the frenetic blur of Internet headlines.”

At Moses Znaimer’s ideacity think tank in Toronto,

Peter Laufer introduced his idea for Monsanto Roundup Ready milkweed to an appreciative — if surprised — audience of Canadians understandably worried about the survival of their iconic Monarch butterfly population and its magical migration to Mexico.

Check out the documentary made by Peter Laufer and his University of Oregon colleagues Gabriel Martinez and Dan Morrison along with their School of Journalism and Communication students produced at UNESCO World Press Freedom Day events in San José, Costa Rica.

Peter Laufer’s book Organic: A Journalist’s Quest to Discover the Truth behind Food Labeling is praised by Kirkus in a review that promises: “A lively, highly informative exposé capped by trips to Kazakhstan and Bolivia, where Laufer settles his questions about the walnuts and black beans he purchased.”

Watch the trailer for Peter Laufer’s book Organic: A Journalist’s Quest to Discover the Truth behind Food Labeling.

Bill McKibben says about Laufer’s trek along the food chain, “Ever wonder if that ‘organic’ sticker on your produce is legit?  Peter Laufer did the work to find out, and the answers are equal parts fascinating and disturbing.”

Peter Laufer took on mega-solar-energy farms in this op-ed for High Country News that promotes rooftop solar.  “Which should come first,” he asks, “protecting the threatened desert tortoise or creating expensive electricity for an already overpopulated California?”  In addition to the fowl (foul?), endangered Desert Tortoises are victims of the world’s largest solar plant along the Nevada-California border.

Peter Laufer called on Ottawa, Washington and Mexico City to address to crises of Monarch butterfly habitat loss in this Toronto Globe and Mail op-ed.

At UNESCO’s Paris headquarters, University of Oregon-UNESCO Institute for Conflict Sensitive Reporting and Intercultural Dialogue co-Director Peter Laufer spoke about his passion for radio as a timeless communication medium.

Peter Laufer gave the keynote address at the second annual Turtle Conservancy fundraiser, the Turtle Ball at the Bowery Hotel in New York.

From UNESCO’s Paris headquarters, Peter Laufer discussed the unending potency of radio (no matter what new media innovations bring) for UNESCO World Radio Day.

Peter Laufer analyzed the secession movements in Oregon, California and Colorado in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times and High Country News.

In his book The Elusive State of Jefferson, Laufer offers an alternative to the southern Oregon and northern California secessionists:

I propose the Jeffersonians jettison Jefferson and call their place in the sun (and—maybe more often—the rain), Garbo. She is famous for wanting to be left alone. They want to be left alone, or so they say. They want to invent a new state. Greta Gustafs- son invented her name: Greta Garbo. Or director Mauritz Stiller invented it. The origin is unclear, just as is the origin of the state names Oregon and California.

Garbo. It has a nice look and ring to it. The typography is appeal- ing when it is attached to place names, as is the sound when the new state name is spoken in conjunction with its major cities. Klamath Falls, Garbo. Yreka, Garbo. Port Orford, Garbo. Add the zip code and it looks official: Ashland, Garbo 97520. Eureka, Garbo!

At a wild cat sanctuary near Portland, Oregon, a cougar runs amok and kills a keeper.  Peter Laufer weighs in on the case and its ramifications with this op-ed in the Oregonian.

“Join my Slow News Movement,” writes Peter Laufer in the Catamaran Literary Reader.  His book, Slow News: A Manifesto For the Critical News Consumer, is scheduled to be published in English early 2014 by the Oregon State University Press.  The Italian and Korean editions are in bookstores. Laufer talks about the Movement on the Jefferson Public Radio show “The Jefferson Exchange.”

Peter Laufer investigates the clash between the threatened Desert Tortoise and so-called green solar energy farms in the Mojave.  Read about the counterintuitive conflict in The Tortoise, the journal of the Turtle Conservancy.

The customer is not the editor, writes Peter Laufer in the Gutenberg University publication Journalism and Media Convergence.

While teaching at the University of Oregon outpost in Vienna, Peter Laufer suggested on the op-ed page of the Eugene Register-Guard that the university town learn some lessons from the Old World.

Peter Laufer discussed his Slow News Movement on the Oregon Public Broadcasting radio program “Think Out Loud” and the PBS forum “Need to Know” in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings.

With his University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication colleagues Gabriela Martinez and Dan Morrison, along with their students Michelle Goris and Max Brown, Peter Laufer produced this brief video at UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day in San José, Costa Rica, about the plight of Reeyot Alemu.  The Ethiopian journalist — imprisoned for writing commentaries critical of the government — was awarded the 2013 UNESCO Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Day Prize.

In the Vienna newspaper Der Standard, Peter Laufer attacked the absurdity of journalists seeking “quote approval” from interviewees, a commonplace practice in Austria and a growing phenomenon in America.

With his University of Oregon colleague Professor Janet Wasko and Linfield College Professor Michael Huntsberger, Peter Laufer is a coordinator of the School of Journalism and Communication “What Is Radio?” conference.  Practitioners and scholars from around the world share ideas at the University’s George S. Turnbull Center in Portland, gathered together at the first academic conference in history with its own jingle package, thanks to the UO School of Music.

Laufer’s old KSAN (Jive95) mates from the early 1970s (note Laufer in the jaunty straw hat and pearl-buttoned cowboy shirt at the top of the fold):

In the San Francisco Chronicle one of those KSAN veterans, Ben Fong-Torres, answered an invitation to the conference with a column.

Peter Laufer promoted his Slow News Movement (“Yesterday’s News Tomorrow”) in the op-ed pages of the Portland Oregonian and talked about his rules for switching off the 24-hour news merry-go-round on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Think Out Loud” talk show.  The op-ed and radio cameo were followed by speeches Universitat Abat Oliba CEU in Barcelona,

¡El periodista despacio!

the University of Oregon’s George S. Turnbull Center in Portland and the Washington State University/Vancouver Edward R. Murrow College of Communication.