Journalists

Galloway, who died Aug. 18, was the only civilian to be awarded the medal of valor in the Vietnam War. He later co-authored We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young. Originally broadcast in 1992 and 2003.

Gallagher was court martialed for shooting at civilians from a sniper's post and murdering a defenseless captive in Iraq. New York Times correspondent David Philipps chronicles the case in Alpha.

Fresh Air producer John Sheehan discusses The Radio Adventures of Eleanor Amplified, a new adventure podcast for kids featuring an intrepid radio reporter who foils plots and outwits crafty villains.

Robert Timberg, who was disfigured by a land mine as a Marine in Vietnam, went on to become a successful journalist. His new memoir Blue Eyed Boy charts his struggle to recover from his wounds.

Since about age 2, Atlantic editor Scott Stossel has been "a twitchy bundle of phobias, fears and neuroses." Today, his phobias include asthenophobia, a fear of fainting; aerophobia, a fear of flying; and turophobia, a fear of cheese. He wrote his latest book to help understand and find relief from his anxious suffering.

Journalist Alfredo Corchado covers Mexico for the Dallas Morning News. His new book, Midnight In Mexico, is part memoir and part recent history of the upheaval in the country. He talks to Fresh Air about the power of the cartels, the rampant corruption and the hopes for the future of Mexico.

The Vanity Fair columnist wrote about his early career at the Village Voice in Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty In the Seventies. (Rebroadcast from November 2011.)

David Carr, who writes the Media Equation column for The New York Times, says that despite cuts, the future of journalism has never looked brighter. "I look at my backpack that is sitting here and it contains more journalistic firepower than the entire newsroom that I walked into 30-40 years ago," he says.

This week on Fresh Air, we're marking the year's end by revisiting some of the most memorable conversations we've had in 2011. This interview was originally broadcast on October 27, 2011.

The Vanity Fair critic was an aspiring writer when he arrived in a turbulen Manhattan in 1972. In his memoir, Lucking Out, he writes about the crime and culture (and pornography) he discovered there.