Peter Laufer – författare

Investigative journalist Peter Laufer is back with his third book in a trilogy that explores the way we humans interact with animals. The attack of a trainer at Sea World by a killer whale in February 2010 is the catalyst for this examination of the controversial role animals have played in the human arenas of entertainment and sports. From the Romans throwing Christians to lions to cock-fighting in present-day California, from abusive Mexican circuses to the thrills of a Hungarian counterpart, from dog training to shooting strays in the Baghdad streets, Laufer looks at the ways people have used animals for their pleasure. The reader travels with Laufer as he encounters fascinating people and places, and as he ponders the ethical questions that arise from his quest.

By 1941, a nascent statehood movement began to coalesce into an active and explicit secession campaign seeking to carve from Northern California and Southern Oregon a new State of Jefferson. Yreka, California, home of the secession movement, was named the temporary state capital. Local proponents, Members of the State of Jefferson Citizens Committee, began to stop traffic along Highway 99 at armed roadblocks to pass out political broadsides – their Proclamation of Independence. And, in December of that year, Judge John Childs of Crescent City, California, was elected the first Governor of the State of Jefferson.The United States' entry into World War II just days later interrupted this growing movement. News of the bombing of Pearl Harbor replaced the planned coverage of Child's election and overshadowed Jeffersonians perceived marginalization with a national sense of unity. But today what often is referred to as the mythical State of Jefferson remains as both an emblem of the north counties' frustrations and as a cultural signifier that differentiates the region from the rest of California and the nation.Through interviews with residents and travels through the region, Laufer reveals the story of what could have been and the identity of the region that remains even more than sixty years after the apex of the movement.

In the days after September 11, 2001, journalist Peter Laufer setout on a cross-country journey to capture America at its most vulnerableand united. Traveling from Washington, DC, to California, he documented thevoices, faces, and emotions of a diverse cross section of citizensgrappling with tragedy, resilience, and what it meant to be American inthat moment. Ten years later, and again on the 20th anniversary, he retraced his trip across the country, reconnecting with Americans to learn how theirperspectives had shifted as the nation healed, adapted, and faced newchallenges. The result is a remarkable chronicle spanning two decades(2001, 2011, and 2021), one that reveals both the enduring spirit andthe evolving identity of America.  With raw honesty and heartfelt testimony, We Are All Americanscommemorates the 25th anniversary of 9/11 through the words and imagesof typical people whose stories speak to the heart of our sharedhumanity. Key Features: Firsthand interviews with Americans reflecting on 9/11 and its aftermath​Three cross-country journeys capturing diverse perspectives across states and regionsIntimate portrait photography paired with interviewsDocuments 20 years of national transformation through lived experienceThis deeply moving portrait offers a rare and authentic lookat how a nation—and its citizens—continue to define what it means to beAmerican

With this provocative and concise book, journalist Peter Laufer launches a Slow News movement, inviting us to question the value of the perpetual empty-calorie news that accompanies our daily lives.Slow News: A Manifesto for the Critical News Consumer examines the nature of news in the context of the increasingly frenetic pace of modern life in the twenty-first century. Taking a cue from the slow food movement, Laufer suggests that we step back from the constant barrage of instant news to consider news thoughtfully and thoroughly. He argues that it is valuable for both the journalist in the field and the news consumer at home to take the time to ruminate on most news events.Inspired by Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, Laufer offers twenty-eight rules—including “Trust accuracy over time,” “Know your sources,” and “Don’t become a news junkie”—to guide us in a gradual quest for slower news.

Interviewing: The Oregon Method is a collection of practical and analytical essays from more than three dozen professional interviewers, scholars, and teachers. This revised and expanded second edition of the popular professional tool features a new foreword and a dozen new chapters designed to aid journalists navigating the contemporary 'fake news' and 'enemy of the people' media landscape.The book's chapters take focused looks at a wide variety of issues, including interview ethics, the sanctity of quotes, interviewing in the virtual world, negotiating identity, and building rapport. The art of the interview has been taught at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication for generations. This foundational text binds those years of experience into a collection of vibrant essays designed to train novices and invigorate old hands.Interviewing is edited by Peter Laufer, the University of Oregon's James Wallace Chair Professor of Journalism. As he tells his students, 'The interview is intimate, immediate, and often an entrée toward the soul. Conducting interviews can be both great fun and an art form.' This is a primer for the digital age, yet one embracing age-old lessons that make clear the crucial importance of successful interviewing techniques for speaking truth to power along with other productive forms of civic engagement.

Neon Nevada takes readers and viewers on a literal and pictorial journey not only along the old Las Vegas Strip, but also down quiet two-lane rural roads punctuated occasionally with neon signs, those glistening beacons of civilization against the desert night sky. Because the neon resurgence has resulted in an institutionalization and appreciation of Nevada neon unlikely to fade, it is time for this updated statewide neon survey to complete the four-decade project – first published by the Press in 1994.

The book offers a step-by-step blueprint of radical proposals for the U.S.-Mexican border that go far beyond traditional initiatives to ease restrictions on immigration. Up Against the Wall provides the background to understanding how the border has become a fraud, resulting in nothing more than the criminalization of Mexican and other migrants. The book argues that the border with Mexico should be completely open for Mexicans wishing to travel north.

A result of an investigative report by tenacious University of Oregon journalism students, Classroom 15 tells the story of how the dreams of fourth-grade students at the Riverside School, Roseburg, in rural Oregon timber country, were crushed by the prevailing Red Scare, McCarthyism, state and societal censorship, and J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.The teacher of Classroom 15, known fondly as Mr. McFetridge, assigned a pen pal project in an effort to take geography lessons outside of the classroom. Imagining a place as far from Oregon as they possibly could, the students wrote letters to nine- and ten-year-old counterparts in the Soviet Union. Janice Boyle, the class secretary, reached out to Oregon’s Congressional representative, Charles O. Porter, seeking assistance connecting with peers in Russia. Representative Porter forwarded the letter to the Secretary of State Christian Herter, and a week later the students received the shocking and disheartening news that their benign request had been needlessly denied. In the wake of McCarthyism, the Eisenhower administration subverted the assignment, fearing Communist propaganda would infect the innocent minds of eager Oregon schoolchildren. The students’ plight quickly gained national attention with stories running from the Roseburg News-Review to the New York Times. The publicity didn’t miss the attention of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. His agents investigated. They traveled to Roseburg, collected evidence, and took it back to the Bureau’s regional headquarters in Portland. The public reaction was swift and unrelenting. The teacher and the Congressman were attacked by outraged Roseburg citizens, the school board, and enraged Americans across the country.Classroom 15 is all the above and a page-turning adventure story told with the voices of the empowered, tenacious University of Oregon journalism students who took the nascent story and demonstrated their unwavering devotion to the journalistic process by telling the tale.

The book offers a step-by-step blueprint of radical proposals for the U.S.-Mexican border that go far beyond traditional initiatives to ease restrictions on immigration. Up Against the Wall provides the background to understanding how the border has become a fraud, resulting in nothing more than the criminalization of Mexican and other migrants. The book argues that the border with Mexico should be completely open for Mexicans wishing to travel north.

Talk radio is broadcast discourse expressing – under ideal circumstances – the medium’s full potential as a vox Populi megaphone. Talk radio creates a virtual arena (a Coliseum!) in which topics of public relevance, and most specifically of current affairs, are treated with both expert voices and the continuous contributions of the “man on the street” – the vox Populi. This vox Populi is expressed within the mainstream media context. Radio broadcasters anticipate the active participation of listeners and make them engines of the on-air discussions. Talk radio programs become instruments for intervening in public opinion and, via opinions of the public, intervene in the public agenda. Talk radio and its vox populi amplify the importance of political issues and social issues.

Practicing journalism is dangerous. Until the wars in Ukraine and Gaza broke out, Mexico continued to rank as the deadliest locale for reporters, with too many other countries close behind, including Afghanistan, Syria, India, and the Philippines. More journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 2023 than during the entirety of World War II and the numbers of journalists killed, injured, or exiled from both Russia and Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2021 continues to grow.The University of Oregon staged the “Extra! Extra! Refugee Journalists become the Story—Migrating to Stay Alive” conference in April 2024 with expert guest speakers: refugee journalists, academic experts, and others who specialize in exiled journalist issues and threats to journalists and free expression.The symposium brought Mexican refugee journalists in exile to the University of Oregon campus for keynote speeches followed by workshops with other experts in the fields of freedom of expression and threats to journalists. These workshops led to student field work during the conference dates, work regarding how the crises examined during the conference impact tools used by immigrants to obtain news from their countries of origin.The material generated during the symposium plus ancillary reportage fuels the critical stories and conclusions told in the book Don’t Shoot the Journalists.

Forbidden Creatures chronicles Laufer's worldwide quest to penetrate the underworld network of hunters, traders, and customers who constitute the nefarious business of animal smuggling.

Part food narrative, part investigation, part adventure story, Organic is an eye-opening and entertaining look into the anything goes world behind the organic label. It is also a wakeup call about the dubious origins of food labeled organic. After eating some suspect organic walnuts that supposedly were produced in Kazakhstan, veteran journalist Peter Laufer chooses a few items from his home pantry and traces their origins back to their source. Along the way he learns how easily we are tricked into taking "organic" claims at face value.With organic foods readily available at supermarket chains, confusion and outright deception about labels have become commonplace. Globalization has allowed food from highly corrupt governments and businesses overseas to pollute the organic market with food that is anything but. The organic environment is like the Wild West: oversight is virtually nonexistent, and deception runs amok. Laufer investigates so-called organic farms in Europe and South America as well as in his own backyard in the Pacific Northwest.The book examines what constitutes organic and by whom the definitions are made. The answers will stun readers, who have been sold a questionable, highly suspect, and even false bill of goods for years. View the book trailer for Organic at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owiACnN69rY.

Nevada’s iconic art form comes to life.Sheila Swan and Peter Laufer take readers on a journey, not only along the Las Vegas Strip, but down quiet, two-lane rural roads punctuated by neon signs—those glistening beacons that represent commerce in the vast Great Basin. The photographers’ stunning work captures the argon violets, krypton purples, helium golds, and xenon blues that glow amid the nighttime desert sky.  Readers will discover that neon is not just a medium for casino advertising. The colorful images of cowboys and cowgirls, animals, desert landscapes, and a myriad of other creative designs all illuminate Americana. The neon sign helps define Nevada and its businesses, from bars and casinos to the stores, restaurants, motels, and theaters that line the streets of the Silver State’s cities and towns, and those rural areas that are barely a blip on the map. With a compelling blend of striking full-color photographs and fascinating historical commentary, this book celebrates an art form that wholly embraces the state’s unique personality.  First published in 1994, this newly updated and expanded edition of Neon Nevada explores the resurgence of this art form during the last decade, which has resulted in an appreciation of Nevada neon that will never fade. This survey of neon casts the new edition as a defining source for neon scholars and attracts neon aficionados to what can only be defined as a medium as distinctive and interesting as Nevada itself.

This widely praised book chronicles Peter Laufer’s adventures within the butterfly industry and the butterfly underground. Laufer begins by examining the allure of butterflies throughout history, but his research soon veers into the high-stake realms of organized crime, ecological devastation, museum collections, and chaos theory. His ever-expanding journey of discovery throughout the Americas and beyond offers a rare look into a theater of intrigue, peopled with quirky and nefarious characters—all in pursuit of these delicate, beautiful creatures. Read this book, and your garden—and the world—will never quite look the same.

Through their own stories and tips and the entertaining and insightful anecdotes of traveling women, Sheila Swan and Peter Laufer show you how to take care of yourself and feel as good on your journeys as you do at home. Personal safety is a prime concern for women on the road, and this collection of tips and wisdom gives women the tools they need to be secure, confident travelers. The authors are expert world travelers whohelp lay to rest fears and provide guidance for women to travel securely anywhere in the world. From concrete advice about how to plan for a trip to inspirational and informative accounts of experiences on the road, this book will inform and entertain both inexperienced and new travelers. The book includes entertaining and exciting anecdotes of other women. Learn how to protect yourself in any situation and how to avoid trouble when it appears.