Monthly Archive
February 2006
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The Audit
How a Wrong Number Became a Fact Journalists from just about every major news organization are confusing one of the key facts surrounding the story of a foreign company taking over American ports.
By Paul McLeary
February 28, 2006 05:09 PM Comments (6)
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Behind the News
Meltdowns in Iraq, Texas and Cambridge Time and The New Republic examine Iraq's accelerating meltdown, while The New Yorker revisits another political mess in the arid lands of Texas.
February 28, 2006 02:45 PM Comments (1)
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The Audit
Guessing What Apple Has Up Its Sleeve When journalists rely on rumor and teasers from companies promoting their new products, are they practicing journalism, or inadvertently giving companies free PR?
February 28, 2006 12:35 PM
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The Audit
Tom Easton on Being the First to Smell a Rat at AIG The Economist reporter talks about the difficulties of going out on a limb and the travails of taking on AIG and Hank Greenberg, the company’s famously aggressive ex-CEO.
February 27, 2006 04:53 PM Comments (1)
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Politics
Blog Swarm Responds to Kristol’s War Critique William Kristol weighs in on the seriousness of the war effort, touching off a serious effort among bloggers looking to rehash and reinterpret his remarks.
February 27, 2006 01:30 PM Comments (1)
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Behind the News, The Water Cooler
Joel Simon on Journalists Killed and Jailed in the Line of Duty The deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists discusses the organization's report on members of the media killed and jailed in 2005, and other attacks on press freedoms.
By Paul McLeary
February 24, 2006 06:00 PM
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Behind the News
One More Sportswriter Mentions Wheaties, We’re Outta Here Winning gold is nice - but as countless American journalists have made clear throughout the Turin Games, getting your face plastered on a Wheaties box is nicer.
February 24, 2006 05:50 PM
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Politics
A Reporter Returns From Iraq An Optimist On the National Review Web site, Victor Davis Hanson gives one more stunning example of how resilient and persistent our delusions about Iraq can be.
February 24, 2006 05:17 PM
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Behind the News
NPR, Reuters and CNN Highlight An Astonishing Story Ignored By Others Sometimes a story comes over the wires so astonishing, so hard to conceive, that it stops us cold. It happened yesterday with a Reuters dispatch from the Congo.
February 24, 2006 04:16 PM Comments (1)
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The Audit
‘Fed Watchers’ Feed Reporters Something Like News Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Roger W. Ferguson Jr. resigned Wednesday. So, what does it all mean? That depends on which news source you're reading or watching.
February 24, 2006 10:22 AM
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Politics
What’s Really at Issue in the Ports Deal? In the political battle over the decision to let a U.A.E.-owned firm run some of America's ports, what's being lost is any sense of whether this is, objectively, a good thing or not.
February 23, 2006 12:49 PM Comments (2)
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Politics
When is a Civil War a Civil War? If it looks like a civil war and smells like a civil war, odds are - it's a civil war. With yesterday's bombing of a Shiite shrine in Iraq, many pundits and bloggers are finally waking up and smelling the insurrection.
By Paul McLeary
February 23, 2006 11:48 AM
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Behind the News
That’s the Sound of CJR Daily Cringing One of the world's most strident sounds is that of a grown-up voice discussing the latest teenage slang, as Weekend Edition reminds us.
February 22, 2006 05:42 PM Comments (1)
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Behind the News
Summers Resigns, and the Big Guns (and Little) Are All Over It Any controversy involving the Harvard name draws press like moths to a flame, and the resignation of the university's president yesterday provoked front-page coverage of varying quality from the nation's dailies.
February 22, 2006 05:01 PM
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Politics
What Does Port Security Have In Common With Harry Whittington? While bloggers are worked up over a decision to give handling of some American ports to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates, there are a few issues we think everyone is missing.
By Paul McLeary
February 22, 2006 01:53 PM Comments (4)
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The Audit
Market Survey: Business Executives Prefer Cosmo When it comes to inane career advice, it's a buyer's market this week.
February 22, 2006 12:35 PM
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Behind the News
CNN Floods the Zone - With Toilet Bowl Water With news from a middle-school science fair that fast food ice might not be particularly clean, CNN swings into action to prove that it can, in fact, duplicate the results of one kid's science experiment.
February 21, 2006 03:09 PM
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Behind the News
Another Inexplicable Silence on Guantanamo While a UN report last week on treatment of Guantanamo detainees might have been easy to dismiss, two new studies provide a look at who has been imprisoned there - and the press hasn't been paying attention.
February 21, 2006 12:18 PM Comments (2)
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Politics
Cheney Warmed Over, Bloody Baghdad and Beinert on TV News Coverage U.S. News looks at the bloody realities of life in Baghdad and New York reports on yet another reporter who might be headed for jail.
By Paul McLeary
February 21, 2006 11:32 AM
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Politics
Reporters Smell Fresh Narrative, Pounce How "Veterans Run for Congress as Democrats" became the go-to narrative for the political press.
By Paul McLeary
February 20, 2006 05:58 PM
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Politics
Fukuyama Declares the Death of Something Else Bloggers respond to Francis Fukuyama's declaration that neoconservatism, whatever it might once have been, is dead.
By Paul McLeary
February 20, 2006 01:47 PM
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Behind the News, The Water Cooler
Dan Steinberg on Covering Curling, and How to Spot American Reporters in Turin The Washington Post 's Olympics blogger chats about the convivial atmosphere at the Games' Media Center, the questionable importance of curling, and his Cheese Lovers Newsletter.
February 17, 2006 05:00 PM Comments (1)
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The Audit
To BusinessWeek, Up Is Down, and Down Is Up As if we needed any more convincing, BusinessWeek provides yet more evidence that the media's obsession with short-term stock prices does not make any sense.
February 17, 2006 04:45 PM Comments (2)
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The Audit
It Takes Two to Tell Boston Airport Story The Boston papers tell strikingly different stories about the same subject - a reminder of just how valuable two competing voices can be.
February 17, 2006 04:05 PM
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The Audit
Times Scores with Profile of Dirty Tricks Company How did two fresh-faced naïfs stumble into D.C. and, a short time later, land multi-million dollar contracts from the U.S. government?
February 16, 2006 04:14 PM
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Politics
The Buck Stops Here - and There, and There, Too What's the difference between "birdshot" and "buckshot"? A live victim of a hunting accident, instead of a dead one. Yet a number of journalists don't seem to have figured that out.
By Paul McLeary
February 16, 2006 02:38 PM Comments (1)
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Politics
All Cheney All the Time We set out to write a Blog Report free of any mentions of the Cheney Hunting Incident. Alas, the blogosphere refused to play along.
February 16, 2006 01:44 PM Comments (1)
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Behind the News
Sites Dives Into Israel and Environs - And Comes Back With Fresh Stories and Insight Kevin Sites has been covering Israel and the Palestinian Territories for Yahoo! this week – and proving the value of being set free from having to report what happened yesterday.
February 16, 2006 12:38 PM
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Behind the News
ABC Gives a Free Handout to “Wolves” A story on ABC's Web site crosses from reporting on a commercial phenomenon into the realm of free, uncritical publicity.
February 16, 2006 12:16 PM
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Politics
Hunting for Blame (And a Place to Pee) Forget about Harry Whittington's assorted injuries - bloggers want talk about the enormous purple shiner the MSM is allegedly sporting.
February 15, 2006 02:06 PM Comments (1)
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Politics
MediaMatters Tries to Label Sabbath Gasbags A new report from MediaMatters about the ideological leanings of guests on Sunday morning talk shows suffers from one flaw: It doesn't take into account what they actually said.
By Paul McLeary
February 15, 2006 01:05 PM Comments (4)
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The Audit
Reporter Fed Pill Story, Swallows Whole Newsday trots out an expert to discuss the implications of a study on hormone replacement therapy and heart disease - without disclosing the expert's massive conflict of interest.
February 15, 2006 12:50 PM Comments (2)
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The Audit
Barron’s Bashes Google, Just for Kicks Increasingly, reporters who cover the markets don't just write the news; they are the news.
February 15, 2006 10:36 AM Comments (4)
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Behind the News
Newsweeklies Thwarted By Publishing Cycle, and New York Discovers Blogs The major newsweeklies mock Vice President Cheney, New York profiles "blog moguls" and The Washington Monthly discovers a new way of quantifying media bias.
February 14, 2006 03:54 PM
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Behind the News
That Ain’t No Ranch Hand, Boys ‘n Girls We ponder that age-old philosophical question: If the vice president shoots his hunting buddy in the forest and only a Republican operative is there to see it, did it actually happen?
February 14, 2006 01:26 PM Comments (2)
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Politics
One Man’s Leak Is Another Man’s Water Fountain Porter Goss suggested Friday that leakers "are not noble, honorable or patriotic." But how does that square with recent revelations about classified information the White House has chosen to make public?
February 13, 2006 06:06 PM
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Behind the News
Accuracy in Media: Not So Accurate Cliff Kincaid thinks CJR Daily unfairly labeled Doug Bandow a "conservative pundit." Problem is, conservative pundits think Bandow's a conservative pundit, too.
By Paul McLeary
February 13, 2006 04:54 PM
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Politics
Bloggers Detect Right - or Is It Left? - Wing Bias in Olympic Coverage The Olympics are here, and with that tradition comes another, more tedious, one: journalists squeezing "controversial" storylines out of humdrum events.
By Paul McLeary
February 13, 2006 01:58 PM Comments (4)
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The Audit
There’s Money in Fear, But Don’t Tell CNN CNNMoney returns to a favorite far-from-objective source for another article stoking oil fears that are utterly unwarranted.
February 10, 2006 06:45 PM
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Behind the News, The Water Cooler
Ginger Thompson on Haiti’s Chaos and Courage, and Calling Gang Members The New York Times' Mexico City bureau chief discusses the Haitian people's resolve to cast ballots, getting the green light to report in Cité Soleil, and driving all night on a Guatemalan highway.
February 10, 2006 05:30 PM
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Behind the News
It’s an Ugly Story, and There Are No Heroes The outcry in the Muslim world over editorial cartoons has exposed deep rifts between cultures. But that doesn't mean that no one is wrong.
By Paul McLeary
February 10, 2006 04:47 PM
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The Audit
Columnist Sneers, Business World Keeps on Blogging Every so often, some respected journalist will lash out at blogs and expose what seems like an almost primal fear of being upstaged or overthrown - as David Weidner of MarketWatch did yesterday.
February 10, 2006 04:34 PM Comments (2)
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Behind the News
A Barrage of Cringe-Worthy Valentine Stories This time of year, a certain amount of cringe-worthy Valentine's Day-related reporting is to be expected. But just because you know it's coming, doesn't make it any easier to stomach.
February 9, 2006 04:26 PM
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Behind the News
A Heaping Serving of Baked Kolata, Hold the Caveats The New York Times played up a story about research on low-fat diets, but the Wall Street Journal realized there was less to the study than met the eye of the Gray Lady.
February 9, 2006 03:58 PM
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Politics
Mass Alarm Over Mass Data Sweep of Blogs and Email The Christian Science Monitor broke a big story on its front page today, leaving bloggers concerned - very, very concerned.
February 9, 2006 12:59 PM Comments (2)
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Behind the News
Super Bowl Nausea It's early in the year, but we think we've found a finalist for the Best Correction of the Year 2006.
February 9, 2006 10:24 AM Comments (2)
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Behind the News, The Water Cooler
William Bastone on James Frey and The Smoking Gun The author of a recent exposé on A Million Little Pieces discusses the story behind the story and Vanity Fair's questionable use of Photoshop on a recent image.
By Bryan Keefer
February 8, 2006 03:55 PM Comments (1)
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Politics
Tierney Dangles Bait, Blogosphere Bites Hook It's a sunny day here at CJR Daily World HQ, but the forecast is stormy in the blogosphere, where the New York Times' John Tierney is coming under eco-friendly fire for his latest column.
February 8, 2006 01:59 PM Comments (4)
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Behind the News
Eason Jordan Shoots From the Hip, Again - and Misses, Again The former CNN exec wrote Monday that two organizations that track media deaths in Iraq are undercounting those fatalities. He's wrong.
By Paul McLeary
February 8, 2006 10:45 AM Comments (1)
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The Audit
BusinessWeek Has a Big Idea When a newsweekly pronounces that U.S. GDP has been understated by $1 trillion and our trade deficit is actually zero, some careful scrutiny is required.
February 7, 2006 06:29 PM Comments (1)
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Politics
Iran, Presidential Power and a Hemorrhaging CIA As a nuclear-armed Iran looms ever closer, Newsweek dives into the fray with a deeply-reported profile of the country's fiery and fearsome president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
February 7, 2006 03:51 PM
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Behind the News
It’s Getting Awfully Loud in This Tunnel Reuters and CNN.com report the "crazed media" have "reached the point of insanity" over coverage of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie - while failing to turn the same scolding gaze upon themselves.
February 7, 2006 02:53 PM Comments (1)
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Behind the News
Press Misses A Dramatic Election in Central America Costa Rica's presidential election, which holds major implications for global trade, is locked in a dead heat - yet you would be only dimly aware of that fact from reading our country's major papers today.
February 6, 2006 05:07 PM Comments (2)
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Politics
A New Spying Story Ignites Blogorrhea As congressional hearings on the Bush administration's eavesdropping program get under way, bloggers react to a Washington Post article disclosing more details about it.
February 6, 2006 01:20 PM
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Behind the News
In Iraq, the Untold Stories Pile Up, One by One by One FALLUJAH, IRAQ - The fact is, with the press in Iraq stretched thin, the grinding, day-to-day reality of the war is essentially being forgotten.
By Paul McLeary
February 6, 2006 08:00 AM
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Behind the News, The Water Cooler
The Man Who Brought Blogging to Iran Hossein Derakhshan discusses the nascent blogging movement in Iran and his trip to Israel to try to help Iranians understand a country their president describes as an enemy.
February 3, 2006 06:17 PM
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The Audit
Super Bowl Journalism Not So XL’ent Amid the slew of columns pondering the halftime show's line-up or the television ads during the game, a handful of business reporters have managed to get off the sidelines and find a story.
February 3, 2006 04:29 PM
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Behind the News
Western, Arab Journalists Miles Apart in Cartoon Rift DOHA, QATAR - At an international media conference, the controversy over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed drives home the different approaches of Western and Arab journalism today.
February 3, 2006 02:43 PM Comments (1)
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Politics
Pinning Down the President About - What? The Associated Press calls itself "the essential global news network." We'd suggest adding "the official home of the 2008 election-related non-story."
February 2, 2006 04:12 PM
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The Audit
Bank Shells Out Bundle; Editors Get What They Pay For On Tuesday, the vice chairman of Wachovia walked away from the job with more than $500 million in cash and stock - and the financial press mostly just shrugged.
February 2, 2006 03:39 PM
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The Audit
Reporter Groupies Service Rockstar of Finance Raiding corporations is fun. And it's not as hard as it sounds - especially when you can get a passel of reporters to lend a hand.
February 2, 2006 03:16 PM
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Behind the News
Embedded with a Night Patrol in Fallujah FALLUJAH, IRAQ - Curfew falls at 11 p.m. each night, after which anyone found out on the street is considered a target.
By Paul McLeary
February 2, 2006 03:01 PM
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Politics
Army of Bloggers Pounces on Muslims Upset With Comic We have some advice for the PR department of Islamic fundamentalism: Get yourself some bloggers.
February 2, 2006 02:17 PM Comments (2)
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Behind the News
Cloaks and Daggers at the New York Times A brief piece buried inside the paper today notes that the FBI has phoned two Times reporters asking about contacts they had with sources in 2003. So what's going on?
February 2, 2006 01:47 PM
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Politics
Seven Newspapers Grapple With Bush’s Flip-Flop on Oil How well did the press explain the context of the president's unexpected and seemingly grandiose announcement about America's dependence on oil?
February 1, 2006 04:59 PM
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Politics
The State of State of the Union Reporting Some reporters must call a "certified movement analyst" to decipher politicians' expressions. Others dispense with expertise and perform this sort of analysis all by themselves.
February 1, 2006 04:09 PM
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Politics
The State of the Union, Reflected in a Fun House Mirror Like Rashomon, different bloggers watching the same speech will seem to remember different parts -- or none at all.
February 1, 2006 01:11 PM
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Behind the News
On Patrol In a Tense Fallujah FALLUJAH, IRAQ - No more than a minute after leaving the base, we swung a hard left and were bouncing down the streets of Fallujah, kicking up a dust storm in our wake.
By Paul McLeary
February 1, 2006 11:43 AM
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Desks
The Audit Business
- Reuters’s OKC gusher Its outstanding Chesapeake Energy investigation turns toward the gas driller SandRidge
- Audit Notes: insider trading versus CDO fraud, 401(k)s, lead and crime Rough treatment for inside-trading suspects contrasts with CDO probes
The Observatory Science
- Environment coverage TBD The Times says it’s committed, but only time will tell
- Call in the math club Science reporters can help ward off a “Big Data bubble”
United States Project Politics & Policy
- The Frank Luntz script for Congressional Republicans A guide to phrases journos should look for (and scrutinize)
- Hey readers: They’re bluffing! (maybe) The need to put political bargaining positions in context
Behind the News The Media
- German bill would charge for aggregation The potential law would provide content creators with a portion of the profits search engines make by aggregating them
- Gun permit data wasn’t maximized The choice that faced the Journal News was not simply whether to map gun permit holders’ addresses, but how
Blog
The Kicker last updated: Wed 12:13 PM
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- On building trust
The Future of Media
News Startups Guide last updated: Mon 3:27 PM
- ACEsTooHigh.com Reporting on the science, education, and policy surrounding childhood trauma
- ACEsConnection.com A niche social network for professionals working in science, education, and policy related to childhood trauma
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