Author Archives: Luke Ford

About Luke Ford

I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).

Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists

Most rich men quarrel with reporters as subjects of coverage. Sheldon Adelson (1933-2021) did that, and then he did more. He sued reporters. He bought the newspaper that covered him. He founded a newspaper in another country and ran it … Continue reading

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Autumn Gold: Secrecy, Time, and the Recovery of Truth

On the surface the new feature documentary Autumn Gold tells the story of veterans exposed to chemical and biological weapons testing during the Cold War, and of the journalist who carried their accounts into public view. Beneath that story sits … Continue reading

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Eric Longabardi: An Investigative Journalist Between Two Media Orders

Eric Longabardi (b. 1964) belongs to a generation of American investigative journalists whose careers track the passage from network television’s dominance to the scattered digital order of the twenty-first century. He built his reputation on military secrecy, government accountability, aviation … Continue reading

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Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas

The story of Steve Wynn (b. 1942) and the reporters who covered him reaches past one casino executive and the writers who tracked him. It opens onto the relationship between concentrated private wealth and the institutions meant to scrutinize it. … Continue reading

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The Workplace City: John L. Smith and the Lives Behind Las Vegas

A fourth-generation Nevadan, John L. Smith (b. 1960) wrote a column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal for nearly three decades, worked earlier at the Las Vegas Sun, and now contributes a Sunday column to The Nevada Independent. His byline has … Continue reading

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The Man on the Floor: Peter Berg and the Cinema of Competence

Peter Berg (b. 1964) works as a director, producer, writer, and actor. His films and television share a subject. He studies how organizations function under pressure, what happens when systems fail, and why some men keep doing their jobs while … Continue reading

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Who Governs: The Work of Taylor Sheridan

Taylor Sheridan (b. 1970) is America’s leading storyteller. He writes the scripts, directs many of the episodes, produces the series, and owns much of the land and livestock his cameras record. Over a single decade he revived the Western for … Continue reading

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Ben Mezrich: Mythographer of Disruption

Ben Mezrich (b. 1969) writes at the border of narrative journalism, commercial fiction, business history, and cinematic storytelling. Over a quarter century he is a chronicler of the digital economy and a leading popular narrator of technological disruption. His books … Continue reading

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The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility

Hugo Mercier opens Not Born Yesterday with a claim that runs against a long current in Western thought. Humans did not evolve as credulous dupes. We evolved as wary judges of what we hear. Mercier calls the faculty open vigilance. … Continue reading

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Carl von Clausewitz: An Intellectual Biography

Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) holds a singular place in the history of political thought. Memory fixes him as a military theorist, yet his significance reaches well past the study of war. He belongs to the small company of thinkers who … Continue reading

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