Barry’s (Black)Berry

By Katia Bachko   Jan 30, 2009 at 02:56 PM

The Economist has the skinny and the tech-talk on President Obama's much-discussed, but not-so-slim BlackBerry: President Obama may have surrendered... More

Guess Who’s Twittering?

By Katia Bachko   Jan 30, 2009 at 02:34 PM

Answer: The Library of Congress. The tech-savvy folks at the LOC have blogging for some time and now they've jumped... More

California No More?

By Jane Kim   Jan 30, 2009 at 01:54 PM

Kevin Roderick at LAObserved reports that the Los Angeles Times is closing down its California section: Publisher Eddy Hartenstein has... More

Updike Remembered

By Katia Bachko   Jan 30, 2009 at 01:35 PM

Reflections on the passing of John Updike abound this week, and here's a smattering of some noteworthy eulogies. Granta collects... More

Homegrown Errorists

Error-spotter Robert Reed vs. the Decatur, Illinois Herald & Review

By Craig Silverman   Jan 30, 2009 at 11:31 AM

The package arrived two weeks ago, a bulging manila envelope with a return address in Decatur, Illinois. Inside was a... More

Seattle P-I: Feds Knew About Widespread Mortgage Fraud

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 30, 2009 at 10:52 AM

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's days may be numbered, but it's still got some scrap. It put out a nice story the... More

A Guide To Bailout Transparency Sites

Another public service from The Audit

By Elinore Longobardi   Jan 30, 2009 at 09:35 AM

It is no secret that bailout transparency is a problem. Now that taxpayers have become financiers, we have a right... More

“Populist” or Just the Truth?

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 30, 2009 at 09:09 AM

I have a nit to pick with the Times's lead story today about Obama calling Wall Street's $18.4 billion in... More

Don’t Blame Us!

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 30, 2009 at 08:32 AM

It's time for a quote of the day. This from a good Bloomberg story about Davos participants in denial about... More

How One Job Loss Cascades Through the Economy

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 29, 2009 at 04:37 PM

I love this story in the Journal's Currents section today. My former colleague Ben Casselman traces the economic impact of... More

The Openness Ombudsman

D.C.’s new FOIA ombuds office is finally taking shape

By Clint Hendler   Jan 29, 2009 at 04:34 PM

Stakeholders in government information policy—academics, lawyers, advocates, officials, and bureaucrats—gathered today at American University’s Washington College of Law to discuss... More

David Pogue’s “Twitter Experiment”

By Megan Garber   Jan 29, 2009 at 03:21 PM

So, yesterday, The New York Times's David Pogue spoke at a conference in Vegas. "The topic was Web 2.0," he... More

Pulitzers, in 1s and 0s

By Megan Garber   Jan 29, 2009 at 02:58 PM

Hey, all you journalistic procrastinators: the deadline for submitting entries for the 2009 Pulitzer Prizes is this Monday. And since... More

Who’s Undercutting Obama?

For the moment, at least, it’s his press office

By David Cay Johnston   Jan 29, 2009 at 01:25 PM

It’s 3 p.m. and the phone in the White House press secretary’s office is ringing. It rings and rings and... More

The Language and Culture of Climate

New book seeks to improve communication between journalists, scientists

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 29, 2009 at 12:45 PM

One of the things that history will remember about the coverage of climate change is that, not unlike the Iraq... More

Politics Fix

By Megan Garber   Jan 29, 2009 at 11:44 AM

One of the more fascinating--not to mention entertaining--aspects of Robert Gibbs's nearly daily press conferences has been the emergence of... More

Bloomberg Bird-dogs Transparency Issues

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 29, 2009 at 11:12 AM

We at The Audit continue to be impressed with Bloomberg News's aggressive accountability journalism. Its pursuit of transparency in the... More

Nightline’s Future (Per “People With Knowledge Of Meetings”)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 29, 2009 at 11:04 AM

The New York Times today reports: "ABC Said To Consider 'Kimmel' in 'Nightline' Slot," (that is, moving comedian Jimmy Kimmel's... More

Joan Walsh “Could Never Be” Dick Armey’s Wife (So There!)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 29, 2009 at 10:09 AM

Chris Matthews sort of lost (or failed to take) control of Hardball last night . What happened? During a loud... More

End Of (Book) World?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 29, 2009 at 09:24 AM

After February 15, the Washington Post will no longer publish Book World, its stand-alone print book review section. Books coverage,... More

Glory Days

The old TV series Lou Grant offers a salve of newspaper nostalgia

By Steven Kurutz   Jan 29, 2009 at 09:00 AM

These are brutal times for the newspaper industry. Widespread buyouts, shuttered bureaus, diminished ambitions—in many cases, not even the physical... More

Good Madoff Scoop from the Times and Il Sole 24 Ore

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 29, 2009 at 08:52 AM

A good Madoff scoop from the Times this morning is also interesting for how it came about: a collaboration with... More

Dart to The Plain Dealer

Send tips and comments to dartsandlaurels@cjr.org

By Katia Bachko   Jan 29, 2009 at 08:45 AM

Dart to the Cleveland Plain Dealer for failing to stick by its story. Last October, investigative reporter Bob Paynter, at... More

Condition Critical

Can arts critics survive the poison pill of consumerism?

By David Hajdu   Jan 29, 2009 at 08:30 AM

I saw the future through a two-way mirror in November 1990. I had just started a new job as a... More

Bow Reports

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 28, 2009 at 04:56 PM

Do you know this Lego woman? Look familiar, at all? The LA Times explains. SF Weekly offers additional images. The... More

Obama on al-Arabiya

By Kathy Gilsinan   Jan 28, 2009 at 04:30 PM

And the first formal interview of Obama’s presidency goes to… Hisham Melhem, Washington bureau chief for Saudi-owned, Dubai-based al-Arabiya television.... More

Reporting the Stimulus Plan

Applaud the press for its coverage of the herky-jerky spending plans.

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 28, 2009 at 03:14 PM

Does the press have a lot on its hands these days, or what? I've lost count of how many trillions... More

Gillmor on GateHouse

By Megan Garber   Jan 28, 2009 at 01:50 PM

So the much-discussed GateHouse v. Times Company suit settled out of court earlier this week, and many media analysts met... More

Andrea, Anecdotally

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 28, 2009 at 01:19 PM

Anecdotal evidence gathered mostly via IM by The (New York) Observer suggests that... some of the Observer reporters' gay friends... More

Upstate/Downstate Divide in Gillibrand Coverage

Upstate talks issues, downstate talks politics

By Sara Germano   Jan 28, 2009 at 01:07 PM

Any native New Yorker can tell you that the Empire State really has two domains: upstate and downstate (or, if... More

Lead Pipes vs. Crack Pipes

What to do when data supports easy explanations for difficult problems

By Lester Feder   Jan 28, 2009 at 12:58 PM

Yesterday, The New York Times brought readers the best kind of health story: a crisis that failed to show up.... More

Breaking: 4 Minute Wait for Decaf at Starbucks

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 28, 2009 at 11:15 AM

Talk about commodity news. We've gotten on the Journal before for its weird Starbucks obsession obsession, but today it goes... More

By Blago Interview #14, What’s Left To Ask?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 28, 2009 at 11:11 AM

What's left to ask when you're conducting the 17th 14th (of 17, total*) interview with Gov. Blagojevich in 48 hours... More

Entitled Time

Campaign reporters catch up on their reading

By Jane Kim   Jan 28, 2009 at 10:56 AM

After two harried years on the trail, an endless stream of hotel rooms, fast food bolted on the fly, the... More

Laurel to The Oregonian

Health care miracles that aren’t

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 28, 2009 at 10:52 AM

“Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!” That pretty much describes the media’s approach to coverage of new drugs and medical... More

Cloudy Skies

A new online environment and energy energy site is tainted with conflicts of interest among its anchors and executives

By Mariah Blake   Jan 28, 2009 at 10:36 AM

In many ways, CleanSkies.tv, an online outfit offering “energy and environmental news, information, discussion, and commentary,” resembles other TV news... More

Opening India

The world’s largest democracy finally has an FOI law—so why have journalists been slow to embrace it?

By Ralph Frammolino   Jan 28, 2009 at 10:23 AM

In October, community activists from around India gathered at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library in New Delhi to celebrate... More

Did Blago Make “Self-Condemning News” On Maddow’s Show?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 28, 2009 at 10:05 AM

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, directly after her interview with Gov. Blagojevich last night, wondered on-air: Did he just confess to me... More

Calling All “Enlightened Philanthropists…”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 28, 2009 at 09:45 AM

On today's New York Times op-ed page, David Swensen and Michael Schmidt (an investment officer and a financial analyst, respectively,... More

Wising Up

An “investigative humorist” learns from his elders

By Gregory Beyer   Jan 28, 2009 at 09:00 AM

How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They Are Still on this Earth) By Henry Alford... More

Past Perfect?

Obama’s Records Act order heartens historians

By Clint Hendler   Jan 28, 2009 at 09:00 AM

When President Nixon slunk out of the White House, he wasn’t exactly in a sharing mood. In his fight to... More

LAT Is Good on Foreclosures

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 28, 2009 at 08:34 AM

The LA Times is excellent today on the dismal state of housing in California, the ground zero—one of them, anyway—of... More

Kindle 1.0: Fired

By Megan Garber   Jan 27, 2009 at 04:45 PM

In "The Future of Reading," Ezra Klein gave a mixed review to the physical aspect of Amazon's Kindle. The screen... More

The Second Chance Saloon

Judith Miller is writing at The Daily Beast. Does she deserve this second chance?

By The Editors   Jan 27, 2009 at 04:40 PM

So we've noticed that former New York Times reporter Judith Miller has been writing occasionally at The Daily Beast on... More

“The Epidemic That Wasn’t” (Even If We Said It Was)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 27, 2009 at 03:54 PM

Maybe you're old enough to remember the media coverage of "crack babies" back in the '80s and '90s? Allow the... More

“Dream” Deferred?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 27, 2009 at 03:24 PM

Earlier this hour, the following weather-related headline appeared on the NBC News Washington Web site: Moments after I took that... More

Rabbit at Rest

By Megan Garber   Jan 27, 2009 at 02:03 PM

John Updike, celebrated novelist and literary critic, has died of lung cancer at 76. Updike's Wikipedia page was updated to... More

Fox Fumbles Geography

By Katia Bachko   Jan 27, 2009 at 01:51 PM

CJR reader Dan writes in with a tip about a recent Fox News segment called "Terrorists in Your Backyard," in... More

Inside a Layoff

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 27, 2009 at 01:40 PM

The Journal also has an excellent front-page "ahed" today—a first-hand, real-time look at the layoffs that are swamping the economy.... More

Want To Be “Envelop[ed] in a Multimedia Web of [Rick] Warren’s Message”?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 27, 2009 at 11:56 AM

Then you'll want to pay the $30 subscription fee Reader's Digest is charging for Pastor Rick Warren's new quarterly magazine,... More

Franklin: “By Watching [The Inauguration] On TV, I’d Missed It”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 27, 2009 at 11:35 AM

I recommend (after a colleague recommended it to me) reading Nancy Franklin's "On Television" column in the current New Yorker... More

Obama Coverage Mad Libs

“Our D.C. coverage will be (fair and balanced; appearing on alternate Mondays; handled by our Los Angeles bureau)”

By Steve Daley   Jan 27, 2009 at 11:31 AM

From: The Executive Editor To: All Hands The first days of the Barack Obama administration would seem to provide a... More

Q & A: Former McCain Blogger Michael Goldfarb

“I was a cudgel. I pissed off the media.”

By Kate Klonick   Jan 27, 2009 at 10:51 AM

Michael Goldfarb was the McCain campaign's deputy communications director-cum-media bodyguard, tasked by McCain's high command with bullying the press into... More

WSJ Crushes the Competition

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 27, 2009 at 10:02 AM

The Journal dominates the John Thain/Merrill Lynch/Bank of America fiasco story today. Thain fired back at B of A yesterday,... More

Woodward Tells Matthews Something He Doesn’t Know

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 27, 2009 at 09:30 AM

I am sure, though I can't find a link at this moment, that I have complained before about the "Tell... More

The Wikinews Ace

Why Shimon Peres sat down with David Shankbone

By Adam Rose   Jan 27, 2009 at 09:30 AM

One morning in December 2007, a law-school dropout named David Shankbone sat on a couch in Shimon Peres’s office in... More

The Devil Made Them Do It

A new anthology about men (and women) behaving very badly

By Wendell Jamieson   Jan 27, 2009 at 09:00 AM

True Crime: An American Anthology Harold Schechter, editor The Library of America 788 pages, $40 The teenage girl gave birth... More

Bloomberg Picks Apart Madoff “Enablers”

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 27, 2009 at 08:57 AM

Bloomberg comes down hard on Madoff's so-called feeder funds, which it correctly labels "enablers" in its headline. If the 70-year-old... More

Dig In

In an era of global shortages and biofuel debates, the food beat gets serious

By Georgina Gustin   Jan 27, 2009 at 08:30 AM

This past fall, I drove from St. Louis to Osage County, in central Missouri, to meet a hog farmer named... More

Ken Lewis in Black and White

By Dean Starkman   Jan 26, 2009 at 04:06 PM

I don't know how Ken Lewis the man is holding up under the pressure, but I can tell you his... More

The Price is Right, Energy Edition

Obama, journalists tie efficiency and environmental protection to the economy

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 26, 2009 at 03:53 PM

Monday morning, President Barack Obama signed two executive orders to spur an economic recovery plan founded upon clean energy and... More

Could Knowing Everything The Obamas Eat Be Good For You?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 26, 2009 at 03:17 PM

From a recent Associated Press report: The country's top chefs, several of whom traveled to Washington for Obama's inauguration this... More

Thain Again

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 26, 2009 at 02:27 PM

So now it's John Thain's turn to wave the knife. The Financial Times leads its page one this morning with... More

Blago to Geraldo: “Is That Ethical?”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 26, 2009 at 01:57 PM

Fox News's Geraldo Rivera was promised a "2:00 interview" with Gov. Blagojevich. Snubbed by the governor's "sleazy PR guy," Geraldo--... More

Coincidence? Synergy? Swans!

By Megan Garber   Jan 26, 2009 at 01:44 PM

So I couldn't help but notice, reading The Swan Song Heard 'Round the World just now, an odd collusion between... More

Miss New York: Palin, Pageant Misunderstood

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 26, 2009 at 12:50 PM

During the question-and-answer section of Saturday night's Miss America pageant, Miss New York, Taylor Smith, fielded this question: In Governor... More

Pedal Pushers

“Soft-peddling” a faulty homonym

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 26, 2009 at 12:03 PM

Now that Barack Obama is president, one columnist wanted to know, weren’t the late-night comedians, who had taken so many... More

How To Handle Blago’s “Out-of-Context” Comeback

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 26, 2009 at 11:41 AM

Those words have been "taken out of context" seems to be Gov. Blagojevich's go-to reply when asked by reporters about... More

Prez Talks Energy Independence; CNN Cues SUV Ad

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 26, 2009 at 10:53 AM

If you tuned in to CNN just now to watch President Obama take some first steps to reverse Bush administration... More

GateHouse v. Times: Settled!

By Megan Garber   Jan 26, 2009 at 10:52 AM

So it ended before it began. GateHouse v. New York Times--the copyright and trademark infringement case filed by local-news behemoth... More

“Governor Ignores Trial, Goes For Glam”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 26, 2009 at 10:35 AM

While we await Gov. Blagojevich's appearance on The View (three minutes!), a selection of headlines out of Illinois today: More

Portfolio’s Trivial Pursuit

Instead of investigating Goldman, it mocks the idea

By Dean Starkman   Jan 26, 2009 at 10:28 AM

I am still not understanding a certain strain of business-press culture that seems inclined to run interference for investment banks... More

Sen. Winfrey

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 26, 2009 at 10:18 AM

Last week, my colleague Megan questioned Oprah Winfrey's inclusion on Forbes's list of the "25 most influential liberals in the... More

“Stop covering crimes, and start committing them.”

By Katia Bachko   Jan 26, 2009 at 10:06 AM

The Washington Post's Gene Weingarten adds his two cents to the cacophony of voices ruminating the future of newspapers with... More

Times on the Move Toward Nationalization

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 26, 2009 at 10:02 AM

The nationalization argument keeps picking up steam, and it keeps making sense—at least compared the other harebrained schemes that have... More

What We Learned In the Meltdown

Financial journalists saw some trees but not the forest. Now what?

By Martha M. Hamilton   Jan 26, 2009 at 09:30 AM

One day in June 2005, my colleague Nell Henderson and I hiked over to the Bond Market Association to get... More

Kristol’s Swan Song, Upstaged

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 26, 2009 at 09:29 AM

I nearly missed the six italicized words below William Kristol's column in yesterday's New York Times ("This is William Kristol’s... More

COBRA and Health Care Equity

It’s time for the press to connect some dots

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 26, 2009 at 09:27 AM

Remedies for America’s diseased health system tend to come incrementally—an approach that doesn’t disrupt the status quo but never quite... More

Feet to the Fire

Does journalism keep government honest?

By Michael Schudson & Danielle Haas   Jan 26, 2009 at 09:00 AM

For a profession that lives by the cynical adage, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out,” journalism... More

Journal with More on TARP

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 26, 2009 at 08:41 AM

The Journal this morning has some good reporting on the failure of TARP to stimulate lending, its second very good... More

Here Comes the Bogeyman

A chaotic portrait of Rupert Murdoch and his discontents

By David Nasaw   Jan 26, 2009 at 08:30 AM

The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch By Michael Wolff Broadway 446 pages,... More

Baucus Watch Archive

An archive of Trudy Lieberman’s “Baucus Watch” articles

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 25, 2009 at 12:47 PM

Below, you will find links to every entry in Trudy Lieberman’s “Baucus Watch” series, in descending order. 10/02/09: Baucus Watch,... More

U.S. News to Launch Digital Newsweekly

By Megan Garber   Jan 23, 2009 at 05:49 PM

Later today, reports Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici, U.S. News & World Report will be rolling out a weekly digital digest: There's... More

Voulez-Vous Lire Le Monde avec Moi, Ce Soir?

By Megan Garber   Jan 23, 2009 at 05:36 PM

So, over in the land of Freedom Fries and Jerry Lewis...there's a new news policy afoot. President Sarkozy is going... More

And the Winner Is…CNN!

By Megan Garber   Jan 23, 2009 at 05:01 PM

Tuesday proved, as expected, to be one of busiest days in history for Web traffic. And of the sites competing... More

Sketched Out

By Megan Garber   Jan 23, 2009 at 04:48 PM

Some tasty bits from today's WaPo's Web chat featuring Dana Milbank... On yesterday's press conference: New Jersey: Can I just... More

Gillmor: Journalists “Need to Become the Right Kind of Activists”

By Megan Garber   Jan 23, 2009 at 04:24 PM

Media guru Dan Gillmor, writing on TPMCafe, eviscerates the job the media did covering the financial crisis. Angrier in tone... More

MoDo on Inauguration: “They Were Just Being Very Loving”

By Megan Garber   Jan 23, 2009 at 01:59 PM

The Daily Beast has a video clip of Maureen Dowd's Larry King Live appearance, in which The Redhead and The... More

New York Times to the World: Teehee!

By Megan Garber   Jan 23, 2009 at 01:01 PM

Sarah Lyall has got to be enjoying her job these days. Hot off the heels of reporting on the E.U.... More

The Buddy Can You Spare a Dime Index

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 23, 2009 at 12:53 PM

Reuters, via Atrios: Nasdaq OMX Group (NDAQ.O) said on Friday it will launch options trading on its three-week old Government... More

Oprah? Really?

By Megan Garber   Jan 23, 2009 at 12:26 PM

So Forbes has put out the latest of its low-content-but-high-publicity lists, this one highlighting "the 25 most influential liberals in... More

Arab Media Wars

Hamas, Fatah, and the Arab media world

By Lawrence Pintak   Jan 23, 2009 at 12:22 PM

ABU DHABI – Surf the blogs in the Arab world and you find a common theme: the Bush administration has... More

Channeling the Vatican

By Megan Garber   Jan 23, 2009 at 12:07 PM

Today is the World Day of Communications. To mark the occasion, and to foster its own communications, the Vatican has... More

In the Tank

Did the press help elect Barack Obama?

By Douglas McCollam   Jan 23, 2009 at 12:00 PM

First, allow me to confess my sins. For the last eleven years, I have made my living practicing the dark... More

Say ‘Hey’ to WSJ on Pay

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 23, 2009 at 11:50 AM

Credit The Wall Street Journal for some good number-crunching and analysis today on a hidden facet of executive pay, which—guess... More

Brief Encounters

Short reviews of books about art on the New York Times’s Op-Ed page, the short life of The Chicagoan, and hoaxes in the news.

By James Boylan   Jan 23, 2009 at 11:49 AM

All the Art That’s Fit to Print (And Some That Wasn’t): Inside The New York Times Op-Ed Page By Jerelle... More

A Rare Peek at Why Errors Occur

Times offers treasure trove of error-related information

By Craig Silverman   Jan 23, 2009 at 11:37 AM

Last Sunday’s New York Times was a treasure trove of accuracy-related information, and I don’t mean the paper’s corrections column.... More

Un-American

Have you listened to the right-wing media lately?

By Michael Massing   Jan 23, 2009 at 10:59 AM

In the weeks following the election, the debate over the issue of media bias, and of whether the press was... More

Thain the Vain

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 23, 2009 at 09:26 AM

And so now we have our Dennis Kozlowski, our Leona Helmsley of the current crisis. Thanks to Charlie Gasparino of... More

Obama Tours the Press Room

By Megan Garber   Jan 23, 2009 at 09:22 AM

The AP describes the "wild scene" that took place during Obama's first tour of the White House press digs. Some... More

Baucus Watch, Part IV

Lobbyists in white hats

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 23, 2009 at 09:12 AM

As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus holds the keys to health-care reform; any health-care legislation must... More

Audit Interview: Alan D. Mutter

“We have an enormous number of reporters today, especially at newspapers, who are reporting on the obvious.”

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 23, 2009 at 08:36 AM

Alan D. Mutter is a veteran of the ink-stained days who in the two decades since he left as No.... More

Monitor-ing Progress

By Megan Garber   Jan 22, 2009 at 04:31 PM

Dan Kennedy, journalism professor and MediaNation blogger, has a fantastic profile of the Christian Science Monitor and its Web-bound future... More

Digg-ing Deep: John Boehner

By Megan Garber   Jan 22, 2009 at 03:49 PM

Digg is following up on its (questionably named) Digg Dialogg series--crowd-sourced, Web-based "press conferences" with leaders such as, previously, Nancy... More

Elegy of the Day: For Digitized Staffers in an Analog World

By Megan Garber   Jan 22, 2009 at 03:11 PM

The WaPo reports on the plight of Obama's tech-savvy staffers...who, yesterday, found themselves consigned to offices that are, technology-wise, so... More

Barack in the Ballroom

Dance critics assess the Obamas’ ballroom dancing skills

By Michelle Vellucci   Jan 22, 2009 at 12:12 PM

Watching coverage of the inaugural balls Tuesday night was at times like eavesdropping on a table of gushing bridesmaids at... More

Obama Administration’s “Visual Press Releases”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 22, 2009 at 11:40 AM

The AP, Reuters and AFP refuse the White House's handouts: Three news agencies refused to distribute White House-provided photos of... More

WSJ Peeks Under the TARP

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 22, 2009 at 11:29 AM

The Journal has some excellent reporting today on TARP and how political influence is playing out in who gets money.... More

“And Then They Came for Me”

Journalism under the gun in Sri Lanka

By Maura R. O'Connor   Jan 22, 2009 at 11:21 AM

In Sri Lanka, violence is so endemic that it begins to feel routine. Since I arrived here four months ago... More

Good Scoop by the FT

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 22, 2009 at 10:25 AM

Merrill Lynch paid out about $4 billion in bonuses just days before Bank of America took it over, the Financial... More

Chuck Todd Scolds Single-Source Kennedy’s Out Reporting

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 22, 2009 at 10:02 AM

Of the reporting, which began late yesterday (first from the New York Post and New York Times), that Caroline Kennedy... More

NSA Knows What Olbermann Said To His Little Nephew In Upstate New York?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 22, 2009 at 09:48 AM

The National Security Agency spied on journalists, according to former NSA analyst Russell Tice. Part of Keith Olbermann's interview with... More

Vindication for the Journal

By Dean Starkman   Jan 22, 2009 at 09:15 AM

With the dispatching of Sir Win Bischoff from the chairmanship of Citigroup, following the dismantling of its financial supermarket model... More

Hung Out to Dry

The national-security press dug up the dirt, but Congress wilted

By Laura Rozen   Jan 22, 2009 at 09:00 AM

In November and December 2005, The Washington Post and The New York Times published two groundbreaking national-security stories that revealed... More

Solid Post Reporting on Regulation

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 22, 2009 at 08:37 AM

The Washington Post has a very good story this morning on bank regulation. It found that at least thirty banks... More

And He Wore Kevlar

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 21, 2009 at 04:39 PM

A welcome break from all the discussion of What The First Lady Wore: Wired on who could have designed President... More

Who Moved His Cheese?

There’s more to openness than a new Web site

By Megan Garber   Jan 21, 2009 at 04:14 PM

In 1835, a New York dairy farmer sent President Andrew Jackson an unusual gift: a wheel of cheese weighing nearly... More

Biden’s “A Long-Winded Person”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 21, 2009 at 03:47 PM

Damon Weaver, the 10-year-old reporter who interviewed Joe Biden back in October, revealed to MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell just now his... More

WardrobeGate’s Coattails

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 21, 2009 at 02:48 PM

From Robin Givhan's Washington Post piece about Michelle Obama's Inauguration Day wardrobe (and her fashion choices more generally): The bill... More

Day One: New FOIA Rules

Quick victory for transparency

By Clint Hendler   Jan 21, 2009 at 02:40 PM

Addressing his new White House staff in a ceremony this afternoon, President Barack Obama spoke repeatedly of the importance of... More

Colorblind at The New York Times

Blue Room, Green Room, what’s the difference?

By Daniel Luzer   Jan 21, 2009 at 01:58 PM

In today's New York Times, Deborah Needleman has an interesting, if sort of fluffy, column about how the Obamas should... More

Short a Billion (or a Tad More)

By Jane Kim   Jan 21, 2009 at 01:10 PM

In The Economist's "The world this week" news briefs, we get an update on the bailout heard around the world:... More

Roubini: Banks Are Insolvent

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 21, 2009 at 01:09 PM

You know things are bad when an assertion like this doesn't seem that surprising at first glance: U.S. financial losses... More

Bush’s “Eyes Shrink, While His Ears Grow”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 21, 2009 at 01:00 PM

Political cartoonist Daryl Cagle, in the (Midland, TX) Lone Star Iconoclast on "How to Draw President George W. Bush:" Another... More

Unsettling News From Liberty Street

By Dean Starkman   Jan 21, 2009 at 12:25 PM

The WSJ reports: The Wall Street Journal has received more than a dozen envelopes containing an unknown white powder, and... More

Malia And Sasha…In the Plush

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 21, 2009 at 12:18 PM

Crain's reports today the latest -- and, for my money, the creepiest, to date-- Malia and Sasha news: the maker... More

The Podium and the Mall

Penning lines about the inauguration, columnists look both ways

By Jane Kim   Jan 21, 2009 at 11:48 AM

We have a new president. And after yesterday's inaugural festivities, op-ed columnists set to work to define what it was... More

Above the Fold: This Land Is Our Land

Obama’s inauguration was a celebration forty years in the making

By Charles Kaiser   Jan 21, 2009 at 11:35 AM

“You sing it with us: we’ll give you the words.” –Pete Seeger, Washington, D.C., January 18, 2009 "The answer is... More

“Hope Over Fear”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 21, 2009 at 10:57 AM

Scanning (courtesy of The Newseum) today's front pages, of the headlines that include a quote from yesterday's inauguration address, "Hope... More

Obama “Prepared” to Take on the Banks Mess?

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 21, 2009 at 10:52 AM

The most pressing question for the new administration is what to do about the banks, which are again threatening to... More

Bush’s Homecoming, Live (Only Fox News)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 21, 2009 at 10:37 AM

Only Fox News carried live last evening President Bush's arrival in Midland, Texas and his remarks to the crowds there.... More

Seven Questions for Barack Obama

Congratulations, Mr. President. Now get to work.

By CJR Staff   Jan 21, 2009 at 10:06 AM

As the inaugural crowds pack their bags and head home from Washington, suffused with the sense of having been part... More

Matthews: “Not A Political Marriage”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 21, 2009 at 09:32 AM

The MSNBC crew offered this commentary on President and First Lady Obama dancing at The Youth Inaugural Ball (4th of... More

Borderless Journalism in Gaza

BBC, CNN-I, and Al Jazeera English offer nuanced coverage of Gaza war

By Lawrence Pintak   Jan 21, 2009 at 09:09 AM

CAIRO – In television terms, Gaza has been déjà vu all over again. U.S. television has been dominated by talking... More

Sticks and Stones

David Denby goes toe-to-toe with the scourge of snark

By James Marcus   Jan 21, 2009 at 09:00 AM

Sly, snotty, and often irresistible, snark has been flourishing in the petri dish of the American media for decades now.... More

FT on Newspaper Ownership

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 21, 2009 at 08:42 AM

The FT has a confused story this morning on the newspaper industry. Its headline says "Newspapers turn into rich mens’... More

O(o)ps! They Did It Again!

By Megan Garber   Jan 20, 2009 at 05:36 PM

Typos are a common occurrence in online journalism--particularly the quick-turnaround, deadline-oriented stuff that's been making its way through the Interweb... More

More Mail For Malia And Sasha…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 20, 2009 at 04:46 PM

...that we all get to read! The letter this time appears in the Wall Street Journal rather than Parade, comes... More

Dept. of Neat But Unnecessary

By Megan Garber   Jan 20, 2009 at 03:23 PM

PBS's Online NewsHour has--what will surely be one of several--tag clouds of this afternoon's Obamaddress. Perhaps yet another case of... More

The Secret Sharer

How can Obama promote openness and transparency in government?

By The Editors   Jan 20, 2009 at 02:21 PM

In the current issue of CJR, we challenged Barack Obama to eschew the furtive secrecy that characterized the Bush administration—"an... More

The Inauguration, Through Matthews’s Eyes (And Lips)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 20, 2009 at 01:38 PM

A selection of deep thoughts from Chris Matthews, on MSNBC, on Inauguration Day (so far): Upon the appearance of Vice... More

Drudge Goes Low

By Megan Garber   Jan 20, 2009 at 01:05 PM

Following the new president's speech about unity and overcoming our differences and setting "aside childish things"...Matt Drudge prioritized the morning's... More

Gerson On The Speech: “Cliched”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 20, 2009 at 01:05 PM

Michael Gerson, who authored President George W. Bush's first and second inaugural addresses, offered on Fox News this critique of... More

“A Similar Green Dress”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 20, 2009 at 12:31 PM

Already, Fox News tells us how we might "Get Michelle's First Lady Style For Less," suggesting "J.Crew has a similar... More

“Editorials Worldwide…”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 20, 2009 at 11:41 AM

"...pillory Bush one final time," reports Reuters. More

Missing Children

The story behind the story on SCHIP

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 20, 2009 at 11:28 AM

Last week, the House passed a long-awaited bill that would increase the number of kids covered under the State Children’s... More

Access Issues

NRO’s Gutmann says the media ban in Gaza was justified

By Jane Kim   Jan 20, 2009 at 11:10 AM

On Jan. 6, The New York Times published an editorial called “Incursion into Gaza,” in which it argued for media... More

Scene From Afar

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 20, 2009 at 10:40 AM

A selection of newspaper front pages from around the world today: More

Live Blogging the Inauguration Live Blogs

Starting here around 11 AM

By The Editors   Jan 20, 2009 at 10:21 AM

CJR staffers will be reading a selection of today's inauguration live blogs so that you don't have to, and will... More

Blitzer’s Beverage Speculation

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 20, 2009 at 10:04 AM

Wolf Blitzer narrating the Obamas' arrival at the White House just now: They're supposed to spend 40 minutes inside for... More

Time Counts the Bush Economic Errors

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 20, 2009 at 09:54 AM

Justin Fox at Time hits the right notes in a piece on “Bush's Economic Mistakes”. Fox lists eight big ones,... More

Thesauri All Around

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 20, 2009 at 09:42 AM

Radio talk show host Laura Ingraham on Fox News this morning: I do find at some point this over-the-top adulation,... More

The Presidential Bird

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 20, 2009 at 09:23 AM

Bob Garfield, from Friday's On The Media: ...[F]or the past eight years this White House has mainly given the Fourth... More

Nationalize the Banks or Just the Losses?

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 20, 2009 at 08:21 AM

Paul Krugman's column yesterday deserves not to get lost in the holiday/inauguration shuffle He fires back at the “bad bank”... More

Let There Be Light

How President Obama should reopen our government

By The Editors   Jan 20, 2009 at 08:00 AM

Over many years, Americans have come to embrace the idea that democracy suffers when the work of government is excessively... More

Neglect by Omission

By Katia Bachko   Jan 19, 2009 at 05:23 PM

The Meridian Star—the 110-year-old daily in Meridian, Mississippi—offers a somber apology for oversights in coverage during the civil rights era,... More

Able Action

When the audience isn’t in on the definition

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 19, 2009 at 05:00 PM

English has no grammar police to prevent someone from taking a word and putting it to work with another meaning,... More

Matt Cooper to TPM

By Megan Garber   Jan 19, 2009 at 03:50 PM

This just in from the Department of Good Gets: Josh Marshall has snagged Matt Cooper, currently of Portfolio and formerly... More

Expect-acle

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 19, 2009 at 03:20 PM

Expectations for Barack Obama's inauguration speech tomorrow are, apparently: "Monumental," CNN "Great," ABC News ""High", Detroit Free Press "Lofty", San... More

Maximum Exposure

By Megan Garber   Jan 19, 2009 at 02:36 PM

Providing yet more evidence of photojournalism's pro-am trajectory...the Newseum is partnering with the nonprofit org FotoWeekDC to sponsor FotObamaWeek, "an... More

Mo-stess

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 19, 2009 at 02:07 PM

Busy weekend for Maureen Dowd: Column to write; Pigs-in-blankets to heat up... The DC Examiner reports that "nearly all 400"... More

Roger Cohen’s Inner Lyricist

By Katia Bachko   Jan 19, 2009 at 12:40 PM

We have before commented on expressions of dubious creativity on The New York Times Op-Ed Page, and today we have... More

To Repeat or Not To Repeat?

Should the original error be restated in a correction?

By Craig Silverman   Jan 19, 2009 at 10:59 AM

To repeat or not to repeat? It’s a simple question, yet it has vexed editors and correction writers for decades.... More

But Will They “Lure” Ratings?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 19, 2009 at 10:23 AM

"Inaugural Week Street 'Newscasts' Lure Onlookers," reports the AP, of the gawkers gathering "to watch network and local television anchor"... More

Above the Fold: More Tortured Logic

Dick Cheney, Susan Crawford, Jim Lehrer, and “moving forward”

By Charles Kaiser   Jan 19, 2009 at 09:48 AM

All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts....Actions are held to be good or... More

Government, Uncovered

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 19, 2009 at 09:26 AM

"If the power of journalism is measured by its ability to spark anxiety in government officials, it’s hard to imagine... More

“This Business Was Too Gentlemanly”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 19, 2009 at 09:10 AM

Another New York Times piece on the business of newspapers: USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times,... More

Cheney’s Regrets

By Katia Bachko   Jan 19, 2009 at 09:00 AM

This weekend, SNL captured perfectly the inanity of the 'regrets' line of questioning, as "Diane Sawyer" interviewed "Dick Cheney" one... More

A City in the Ditch

Weekly Standard, Labash, and LeDuff look beyond “Detroit.”

By Elinore Longobardi   Jan 19, 2009 at 08:05 AM

An Audit Credit to The Weekly Standard for helping to fill one of the business press’s yawning reality gaps: the... More

Inauguration: Coming Soon To A Television Set Near You! (Maybe!)

By Sara Germano   Jan 16, 2009 at 05:44 PM

This weekend kicks off the beginning of the much-anticipated inaugural celebrations in Washington, DC. But it appears that television coverage... More

Hamas ≠ Nazis (or Hamas = Nazis?)

In some equations, proportionality does matter

By Jane Kim   Jan 16, 2009 at 03:38 PM

"Who are the real Nazis?" read a recent op-ed headline in the Los Angeles Times. The column it announced, penned... More

Dart to the Florida Health News Service

Whose side is it on, anyway?

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 16, 2009 at 11:50 AM

“Will Obama be able to kill popular Advantage plans?" Whoa! The headline sounded ominous and signaled that the new president... More

In Which Pigs Take Flight

By Megan Garber   Jan 16, 2009 at 09:37 AM

Charles Krauthammer, speaking and joshing on a panel about the coming presidency with fellow Fox-friendly commentators Fred Barnes and Mort... More

The Press and Steve Jobs

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 16, 2009 at 09:25 AM

The controversy over Apple CEO Steve Jobs' health is all over the press, and with it, questions about how the... More

Chris Matthews Strikes Again

By Megan Garber   Jan 16, 2009 at 09:02 AM

I'd thought Chris Matthews, via his excitement over the election of Barack Obama, was currently filled with Hope. But apparently... More

Fortune’s Forgiving Instincts

The magazine chooses not to see

By Dean Starkman   Jan 16, 2009 at 08:49 AM

A Fortune piece this week shows how editorial tastes can differ, to say the least. When it chooses to explore... More

Crash

A loaded term with no place in today’s river-landing coverage

By Megan Garber   Jan 15, 2009 at 06:25 PM

The salient fact of this afternoon's Hudson River water landing is that it involved no casualties. So far, US Airways... More

Breaking: Passenger Jet in the Hudson

By Megan Garber   Jan 15, 2009 at 03:41 PM

There is currently a commercial airplane in New York City's Hudson River (it looks to be a small regional jet,... More

Glossy Mags’ “Journalistic Triple Axel?”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 15, 2009 at 11:21 AM

Salon's Rebecca Traister "scour[ed] periodical racks" and reports back on how "an industry built on a meringue of material aspiration... More

Reuters Evacs Gaza Bureau

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 15, 2009 at 10:45 AM

Per Reuters: An explosion blasted a tower block in the city of Gaza on Thursday that houses the offices of... More

Fortune Looks at Possible Prosecutions

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 15, 2009 at 10:16 AM

Fortune's cover story this week looks at something I've been wondering about for, oh, a year or so now: Who's... More

Guess Who’s On “The Rhetoric Beat?”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 15, 2009 at 10:10 AM

David Milibrand, Britain's foreign minister, argues in today's Guardian that "'war on terror' was wrong," that "the phrase gives a... More

Cheney: “Did You See It Coming, Jim? You’re An Expert.”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 15, 2009 at 09:22 AM

I'm watching Jim Lehrer interview Cheney (from last night's NewsHour), and highlights to me, so far, include the moment when... More

A See-Through Society

How the Web is opening up our democracy

By Micah L. Sifry   Jan 15, 2009 at 09:00 AM

It may be a while before the people who run the U.S. House of Representatives’ Web service forget the week... More

Obama’s SEC Pick Under the WSJ Microscope

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 15, 2009 at 08:49 AM

The Journal is excellent today covering Mary Schapiro, Obama's pick to head the SEC. The pick never engendered much enthusiasm,... More

Johnny Jones 2.0

It’s not just financial: GlobalPost offers a new editorial model, too

By Megan Garber   Jan 14, 2009 at 04:34 PM

Journalists, these days, have little reason for cheer. At a time when Romenesko's updates increasingly read as real-time obituaries for... More

Parading Malia And Sasha

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 14, 2009 at 03:55 PM

The XX Factor's Emily Bazelon on Barack Obama's "Open Letter To My Daughters" in the current Parade magazine: Why is... More

Next Up, Media Critics?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 14, 2009 at 02:42 PM

Obama sat down this morning ("there weren't refreshments") with some left-leaning pundits (or lefter-leaning-than-last night), reports Michael Calderone. The group... More

Once Burned, But Not Shy

For this young journalist, the search for justice is here to stay. The rest is just details.

By Christopher Wink   Jan 14, 2009 at 02:18 PM


Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell will be named Sen. Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate, a high-ranking source in the administration... More

“Media Heavies” and “Hot Nerds”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 14, 2009 at 01:39 PM

From Dana Milbank's "sketch" of Clinton's confirmation hearing yesterday: The questioning of Clinton, who sat at the witness table in... More

Sounds of Silence in Denver

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 14, 2009 at 12:52 PM

“The silence has been deafening in regard to the possible sale of the Rocky Mountain News -- at least officially,”... More

“And Then They Came For Me”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 14, 2009 at 11:37 AM

Read the editorial that Lasantha Wickramatunga, the editor of the Sri Lankan newspaper the Sunday Leader who was killed last... More

Openness victory on lost White House emails

By Clint Hendler   Jan 14, 2009 at 10:47 AM

There's a lot of work going on inside the Bush Administration before it scoots out of office in less than... More

Dinner at Will’s

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 14, 2009 at 10:17 AM

HuffPo reports Barack Obama ate dinner at George Will's house last night, along with "several of the nation's most prominent... More

WellPoint Gets in Trouble with Medicare

Journalists should jump on this story ASAP

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 14, 2009 at 10:04 AM

It’s not everyday that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) cracks down hard on one of its clients;... More

Trade Plunges; Whither China?

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 14, 2009 at 09:54 AM

The Journal fronts some interesting news this morning: Global trade is tanking, showing just how bad the U.S. economy is... More

Another A1 Juxtaposition

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 14, 2009 at 09:18 AM

Back in October, Katia wondered, "Did the New York Times intentionally construct a brilliant juxtaposition of wealth and poverty on... More

A Couple of Misses on Citi

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 14, 2009 at 08:47 AM

I've got a bone to pick with the coverage this morning of Citigroup's dismantling of itself. Nowhere in Bloomberg, the... More

“Wonk” It!

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 13, 2009 at 04:31 PM

Bree Nordenson, who writes for CJR, is mentioned in "Wonks Gone Wild," an article in this week's New York magazine,... More

Palin’s Email to the Editor

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 13, 2009 at 03:28 PM

Pat Dougherty, editor of the Anchorage Daily News, posts on his "Editor's Blog" a recent email exchange he had with... More

Exit Cheney

What questions should Lehrer ask the Veep?

By The Editors   Jan 13, 2009 at 12:15 PM

President Bush's final press conference yesterday got a lot of press coverage. Less attention has been given, however, to the... More

Helen?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 13, 2009 at 11:34 AM

Unless I'm missing it, it doesn't look like Helen Thomas got to ask a question during Pres. Bush's final press... More

To Sell Or Not to Sell

Carr and Jarvis on newspaper business models

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 13, 2009 at 11:24 AM

David Carr makes a point that's so obvious but so anti-conventional wisdom that I think it bears a closer look:... More

Not So Impeachy

“Impeachment”: a clarification

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 13, 2009 at 10:59 AM

When the Illinois House of Representatives voted to “impeach” Governor Rod Blagojevich, a number of blogs carried public comments like... More

“What Is Financial Journalism For?”

A timely academic study asks the right questions

By Dean Starkman   Jan 13, 2009 at 10:39 AM

"The current crisis in global banking, markets and economies has reminded us all of the importance of financial and business... More

How The “Wistful” “Final Q&A” Was Covered

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 13, 2009 at 10:22 AM

A quick comparison of some of the coverage of yesterday's presidential press conference. The Washington Post and LA Times saw... More

Ready For His Close-Up

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 13, 2009 at 09:14 AM

Familiar sorts of final-days-of-an-administration presidential press coverage: legacy-tending; exit interviews; and, side-by-side My, how the president has aged images. On... More

Environmental S.W.A.T. Team

New York Times’s new ‘pod’ gathers talent from multiple beats

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 13, 2009 at 09:12 AM

On Thursday, The New York Times will launch a new, crack environmental reporting unit that will pull in eight specialized... More

NYPD “Recognizes 21st Century Journalists”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 13, 2009 at 09:06 AM

In the September/October 2008 issue of CJR, Ann Cooper explored in an essay ("The Bigger Tent") the questions of who... More

WSJ Sees the Bright Side of Layoffs

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 13, 2009 at 08:52 AM

The Journal reaches too far for a silver lining this morning, writing that, hey, even if tons of people are... More

What We Didn’t Know Has Hurt Us

The Bush administration was pathological about secrecy. Here’s what needs to be undone after eight dark years—and why it won’t be easy.

By Clint Hendler   Jan 13, 2009 at 08:00 AM

Advocates for open and transparent government are quick to note that no American presidential administration has, in practice, been enthusiastic... More

Can I Borrow A Forward?

By Kathy Gilsinan   Jan 12, 2009 at 05:35 PM

On its website today, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel refers in a sidebar to a photogallery the paper's site posted back... More

The Atlantic v. NYT: the Times responds

By Megan Garber   Jan 12, 2009 at 04:18 PM

The New York Times has issued a letter to The Atlantic's editor in response to Michael Hirschorn's controversial The-Times-May-Stop-Printing-by-May article.... More

Above the Fold: What Would Dick Do?

Kaiser on Newsweek’s “What Would Cheney Do?” cover

By Charles Kaiser   Jan 12, 2009 at 02:31 PM

With just seven days left in our eight-year-long national nightmare, nearly everyone is holding their breath while praying to their... More

Stop the Ambulance Chasers!

Knowing a lot about Iraq doesn’t help you much in Afghanistan

By Joshua Foust   Jan 12, 2009 at 01:25 PM

Now that the war in Iraq is won, according to journalist-bloggers like Michael Yon, we can expect to see a... More

Want a Biscuit? (Sit. Roll Over. Play Dead.)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 12, 2009 at 12:57 PM

Sally Quinn on MSNBC talking about press coverage of the smallest soon-to-be residents of the White House: People are so... More

Health Care Flashpoints Archive

An archive of Trudy Lieberman’s “Health Care Flashpoints” articles

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 12, 2009 at 12:27 PM

Below, you will find links to every entry in Trudy Lieberman’s “Health Care Flashpoints” series, in descending order. 06/29/09: Health... More

Meeting of the Minds, Part Two

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 12, 2009 at 12:24 PM

Last week, Megan highlighted an exchange between Fox News's Bill O'Reilly and his new-book-peddling guest, Ann Coulter, which was essentially... More

The Post Rips the Bush Economy

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 12, 2009 at 11:22 AM

The Washington Post is brutal this morning, as well it should be, in its post-mortem on eight years of the... More

“Hey Guys. You want a Story? C’Mere…”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 12, 2009 at 11:02 AM

Joe (the Plumber) Wurzelbacher helps Reuters and others find "a good story" in Sderot, Israel. (Hint: he is "not the... More

“Just People Trying To Do The Best They Possibly Can”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 12, 2009 at 10:46 AM

Is how President Bush described the White House press corps to the White House press corps this morning at his... More

The Journal’s Late Swing at Housing’s “Baghdad Bob”

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 12, 2009 at 09:57 AM

There are a lot of folks who deserve some time in the public stocks for their doings during the housing... More

Above the Fold: What Would Dick Do?

Kaiser on Newsweek’s “What Would Cheney Do?” cover

By Charles Kaiser   Jan 12, 2009 at 09:50 AM

With just seven days left in our eight-year-long national nightmare, nearly everyone is holding their breath while praying to their... More

“Bending Elbows” With Bono

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 12, 2009 at 09:26 AM

Bono, as Megan anticipated Friday, made his first appearance in yesterday's New York Times as a guest columnist. Rather than... More

A Headline Writer Gets Carried Away

A real plan, or a lot of sweet talk from Daschle and his Senate colleagues?

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 12, 2009 at 09:19 AM

The headline on a New York Times story Friday piqued my interest and probably that of health care mavens who... More

Voting for Glass Houses

Why government transparency may be a lofty goal

By Michael Schudson & Danielle Haas   Jan 12, 2009 at 09:00 AM

In February 2007, newly elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed the Internet as an “incredible vehicle for transparency” and declared... More

The Mail

Reviewing recent issues of the Baltimore City Paper, Mother Earth News, 2000. The European Journal, and more

By The Editors   Jan 9, 2009 at 04:57 PM

People send us their newspapers and magazines. Sometimes, we review them. Mother Earth News, December 2008 / January 2009 For... More

Hardball

A veteran sports columnist meets—and shrugs off—Internet outrage

By Megan Garber   Jan 9, 2009 at 04:36 PM

Corky Simpson is seventy years old. As if to prove it, he refers to himself as “a stubborn old mule”... More

Politicker Out

Political blog network shutters all but two sites

By Clint Hendler   Jan 9, 2009 at 03:12 PM

The Politico’s Michael Calderone brings the news that the battered Politicker network of sites is abandoning its last remnants outside... More

The Opinion Chorus on Gaza

What columnists and opinion writers argued, explained, and claimed this week

By Jane Kim   Jan 9, 2009 at 02:22 PM

Fourteen days into the Israeli offensive in Gaza, opinion writers and op-ed columnists have spent no deficient number of inches... More

Gaza Blogroll

First-person accounts of the conflict in Palestine

By Katia Bachko   Jan 9, 2009 at 01:25 PM

As the foreign press continues to fight for access to the fighting in Gaza, personal blogs offers a glimpse into... More

Letter Imperfect

A better strategy for verifying letters to the editor

By Craig Silverman   Jan 9, 2009 at 11:57 AM

Though it takes up a relatively small amount of real estate, a newspaper or magazine’s letters to the editor section... More

The Harry Reid Show

Report the facts, not the drama, of the Roland Burris situation

By Daniel Luzer   Jan 9, 2009 at 11:51 AM

As of this writing, it looks like Roland Burris, appointed to the Senate last week by embattled Illinois governor Rod... More

Audit Interview: Gretchen Morgenson

“You’ve got to keep hammering”

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 9, 2009 at 11:30 AM

Gretchen Morgenson is a leader of what might be called the accountability school of business journalism—a school with, in our... More

Who’s Gonna Write Your Wild Horses?

By Megan Garber   Jan 9, 2009 at 10:26 AM

So, it's now official: Bono, long rumored to be replacing Bill Kristol on The New York Times's op-ed page, has... More

Finally, Somebody Says It

By Dean Starkman   Jan 9, 2009 at 09:21 AM

Economist, author and Audit pal Jeff Madrick has a piece on the Daily Beast that I've been hoping someone would... More

We (Heart) Bag Fees!?

Times article an insult to consumer reporting, common sense

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 9, 2009 at 09:14 AM

The week before Christmas, I wrote a column about the poor state of consumer reporting in the United States. Imagine... More

How to Save the Times!

By Megan Garber   Jan 9, 2009 at 09:13 AM

In response to The Atlantic's controversial New York Times Deathwatch column, the deep journalistic thinkers at 23/6 have formulated the... More

The Meeting of the Minds

By Megan Garber   Jan 9, 2009 at 09:05 AM

Editor & Publisher provides the transcript of the intellectual discussion that took place earlier this week between Bill O'Reilly and... More

Object Lessons

Holland Cotter on truth, beauty, and critical Zen

By Allan M. Jalon   Jan 9, 2009 at 09:00 AM

The art critic Holland Cotter joined the staff of The New York Times in 1998, after six years of freelancing... More

Apocalypse Now

The Times will die in May! But not really!

By Megan Garber   Jan 9, 2009 at 08:00 AM

Plague. Pestilence. Stopped presses. Hold onto your horsemen, folks: It's the end of times! Or, at least, the end of... More

A Bit of Data to Back Our Thesis

By Dean Starkman   Jan 9, 2009 at 07:57 AM

Survey says: Maybe The Audit isn't the only one to wonder whether the business press has some thinking to do... More

Bloomberg Tears the TARP

By Dean Starkman   Jan 9, 2009 at 07:05 AM

Bloomberg News continues to show the way on Treasury Department coverage this morning with a hard-hitting piece that shows what... More

What the Red Cross Sees, the Media Still Can’t

Red Cross statement on Gaza conditions underscores lack of media access

By Jane Kim   Jan 8, 2009 at 05:16 PM

This morning, most newspapers had some version of an account detailing an accusatory Red Cross report of conditions in Gaza.... More

War of the Words

How descriptions of Hamas shape our understanding of the Gaza conflict

By Katia Bachko   Jan 8, 2009 at 04:21 PM

As the extent of physical damage and human suffering in Gaza comes into sharper focus, one aspect of the current... More

Sweet Charity

By Megan Garber   Jan 8, 2009 at 03:50 PM

Seeing as how the government's in the bailout business these days, there's been talk--both serious and facetious--of the media industry's... More

Media Mattered

By Megan Garber   Jan 8, 2009 at 03:09 PM

Eric Alterman moves his Altercation blog over to the The Nation. More

Deep Journal Resources On Display in India

By Dean Starkman   Jan 8, 2009 at 11:45 AM

The upside of the WSJ’s evolving journalism model is on display in a well-executed account this morning of the scandal... More

The TV Doc as Surgeon General

Whose interests will Sanjay Gupta promote?

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 8, 2009 at 11:38 AM

The president-elect has paged CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta and asked him to be the next surgeon general, a position that... More

Pressed to Speculate: On the Rockets from Lebanon

Headlines run wild on the second-front front

By Jane Kim   Jan 8, 2009 at 11:05 AM

News reports early this morning reported that at least two rockets were fired today from Lebanon into northern Israel, prompting... More

A “Photo Essay,” From FoxNews.com

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 8, 2009 at 10:02 AM

And this is real, I think (although didn't Fox's site get hacked recently?) "10 Hottest Grannies" ("just because their babies... More

The Munsters of MSNBC

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 8, 2009 at 09:40 AM

While interviewing MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart likened the characters of MSNBC to the characters... More

Supposed Senate Run? Just Hardball

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 8, 2009 at 09:29 AM

Chris Matthews told his Hardball colleagues at MSNBC last night that he will not run for Senate next year. "There... More

Media Layoff Mad Libs

10,000 ways to bid farewell to a (colleague; great reporter; car pool organizer)

By Steve Daley   Jan 8, 2009 at 09:26 AM

FROM: The Executive Editor TO: All As you may have heard (in the newsroom; at Caribou Coffee; on somebody's blog),... More

Losing Lehman

Press coverage dances around the true shame of Fuld and his fallen firm

By Elinore Longobardi   Jan 8, 2009 at 09:04 AM

The press has a Lehman problem. We’ve suspected as much for a while now, but only steeled ourselves to trace... More

All in the Family

The Bacardi saga encapsulates Cuba’s turbulent history

By Mirta Ojito   Jan 8, 2009 at 09:00 AM

Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause By Tom Gjelten Viking 480 pages, $27.95 Over... More

Eisinger On Regulators

By Dean Starkman   Jan 8, 2009 at 08:35 AM

We were big fans of Portfolio’s Jesse Eisinger even before our Audit interview with him last month (a must-read for... More

Too Easy on TARP

By Dean Starkman   Jan 8, 2009 at 06:16 AM

A word about a story in yesterday’s WSJ, which calculates that the Treasury Department has earned $8 billion, or 4... More

Gupta Plays One On TV. (Also: He Is One).

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 7, 2009 at 04:30 PM

Word that Obama wants to tap CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta for Surgeon General has been met with some goofing from,... More

Who Will Be at the Table Archive

Links to every entry in Trudy Lieberman’s series

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 7, 2009 at 04:05 PM

Below, you will find links to every entry in Trudy Lieberman’s “Who Will Be at the Table” series, in descending... More

The Rage Will Be Televised

Al Jazeera and its imitators cover Gaza like no one else—but at what cost?

By Stephen Franklin   Jan 7, 2009 at 02:02 PM

The scenes of gore are suffocating. On the floor of a Gaza hospital, an open-eyed youngster who looks no older... More

“Roland Burris (D-Blagojevich)”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 7, 2009 at 01:29 PM

Dana Milbank on Roland Burris's trip to the Senate. More

Brief Encounters

Short reviews of books about public confession and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

By James Boylan   Jan 7, 2009 at 01:15 PM

The Art of the Public Grovel: Sexual Sin and Public Confession in America By Susan Wise Bauer Princeton University Press... More

Where In The World Is Joe The Plumber?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 7, 2009 at 01:14 PM

On his way, apparently, to Israel "to report for the conservative Web site pjtv.com." Take it away, Jennifer Taylor of... More

Wonders of the Web, Part 1,437: Crowd-Sourced Inauguration Speech

By Megan Garber   Jan 7, 2009 at 11:29 AM

Are you one of those people who, when confronted with a "What profession, other than your own, would you most... More

LAT Scores on Health Insurance Scheme

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 7, 2009 at 10:48 AM

The LA Times gets a nice win today in its series on health insurers. The paper has run a series... More

Babo’s Bird and Baked Fries

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 7, 2009 at 10:11 AM

How should news organizations cover the Obama girls? Join that discussion in our ongoing news meeting. Meanwile, a taste of... More

Journalist, Fig Leaf

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 7, 2009 at 09:37 AM

From today's New York Times: [F]or an 11th day of Israel’s war in Gaza, the several hundred journalists here to... More

Sex Ed 101

The WSJ weighs in on abstinence pledges

By Katia Bachko   Jan 7, 2009 at 09:36 AM

Studies about teen sexuality are irresistible media bait, and for good reason: parents are interested because they’re worried about their... More

Pearlstein Skewers Obama’s SEC Pick

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 7, 2009 at 09:29 AM

Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post is good to raise serious questions about Mary Schapiro, Obama's pick for SEC chairwoman.... More

Who Will Be at the Table? Part IV

The docs have escaped media scrutiny—so far

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 7, 2009 at 09:06 AM

During the campaign, Barack Obama promised his cheering crowds that, when he rolled up his sleeves to work on health... More

The Journal Goes Frontline

A (mostly) well-done mini-documentary on the financial crisis

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 7, 2009 at 08:38 AM

If you visited The Wall Street Journal's website yesterday, you saw it touting a three-part in-house video called “The End... More

Gupta for Surgeon General

Obama asks CNN journalist, neurosurgeon to be top doc

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 6, 2009 at 05:22 PM

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz broke the story today that President-elect Barack Obama has offered the job of surgeon general... More

Paging…Surgeon General Gupta?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 6, 2009 at 02:04 PM

CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta thisclose to accepting the job of Surgeon General, according to Howard Kurtz. Inspiring this reader comment:... More

Malia and Sasha Go to School

How should the media cover Obama’s daughters?

By The Editors   Jan 6, 2009 at 01:50 PM

Yesterday was the first of what will be several firsts for the soon-to-be First Daughters: Malia and Sasha Obama’s First... More

“Most Used” Network Reporter of 2008

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 6, 2009 at 01:40 PM

If 2008 felt like The Year You Couldn't Escape Andrea Mitchell, that's in part because she was the year's "most... More

Minnesota Paper Jam

The Wall Street Journal gets its facts wrong

By Katia Bachko   Jan 6, 2009 at 12:10 PM

Kudos to Nate Silver at Fivethirtyeight for pointing out the flaws in The Wall Street Journal’s editorial about the Al... More

Winners & Sinners

Kaiser on Barney Frank, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, Benjamin Button, and others

By Charles Kaiser   Jan 6, 2009 at 10:58 AM

Winners: Benoit Denizet-Lewis and Jeffrey Toobin. The second best political news for America after Barack Obama’s election as president is... More

MSNBC Cringes For Making Itself Cringe

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 6, 2009 at 10:03 AM

Yesterday, I posted about Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski's negative insta-reaction on Morning Joe to their colleague's report about the... More

Conflict-of-Interestism and Lewis/Einhorn

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 6, 2009 at 09:24 AM

Over at the Instaputz blog, TS raises the potential conflict-of-interest factor in Michael Lewis's op-ed collaboration with hedge fundie/author David... More

Perception (Pet-ception?) Analyzers

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 6, 2009 at 09:24 AM

My colleague Katia was no fan of CNN's debate night "perception analyzers." Perhaps she'd prefer the adaptation of the doodad... More

Aspen New Year’s Eve Bomb Threat

Proves—once again—the value of a local paper

By Cristine Russell   Jan 6, 2009 at 09:03 AM

ASPEN, Colo. — The hottest item in the frigid early morning hours of New Year’s Day in this fashionable ski... More

Back to the Future

How sports writing can recapture its relevance

By Gary Andrew Poole   Jan 6, 2009 at 09:00 AM

In the 1920s, The New Yorker published a piece that declared sports a "trivial enterprise" involving "second-rate people and their... More

A Laurel to the AP

For exposing one of Medicare’s biggest holes

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 6, 2009 at 08:56 AM

The press has pretty much ignored Medicare over the past year, largely because the politicians have ignored it too. Media... More

Somalia: Quicksand, or Vital Interests?

The debate over Somalia should not be a proxy for partisan politics

By Joshua Foust   Jan 6, 2009 at 08:52 AM

Matthew Yglesias recently argued at The American Prospect: The Somali situation was, in many ways, improving as of two years... More

Our Tense Past

Sneaking a dive into a swim

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 5, 2009 at 05:15 PM

When you tell your friends that you took a swim yesterday, did you say you “swam” yesterday or that you... More

WSJ’s Good Vehicle for Explaining Subprime Mess

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 5, 2009 at 03:58 PM

Just wanted to make sure you saw this great A1 story in the Journal on Saturday. Reporter Michael M. Phillips... More

Under Presser

Okay, maybe it was “the first governmental press conference ever held on Twitter.” Is that really a story?

By Megan Garber   Jan 5, 2009 at 03:12 PM

It's a pattern familiar to the point of cliché: an international crisis—or, to be slightly more precise, a crisis that... More

Tweet What?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 5, 2009 at 03:00 PM

Twitter accounts at CNN and Fox News were apparently hacked earlier today resulting in a couple of especially candid faux-Tweets... More

Photo Finish

By Megan Garber   Jan 5, 2009 at 02:01 PM

Behold yet another casualty of the digital age: the printed photograph. And, with it, the little ritual of memory previously... More

Government Transparency Takes a Hit

Agencies’ midnight rule changes may make it harder for FOIA requestors to get information

By Jennifer LaFleur, ProPublica   Jan 5, 2009 at 02:00 PM

As one of the most secretive presidential administrations in history gets ready to close up shop, it’s closing a few... More

(Not) Getting Into Gaza

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 5, 2009 at 12:51 PM

Dion Nissenbaum, Jerusalem bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers, reports that "the Israeli military has once again barred the first small... More

MSNBC Makes Itself Cringe

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 5, 2009 at 12:24 PM

Early this morning MSNBC's Tom Costello filed a report from outside the Sidwell Friends School, awaiting the Obamas. It was,... More

First Day Of School Reports

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 5, 2009 at 11:16 AM

From the AP's report on Sasha Obama's first day at Sidwell Friends school: Sasha carried a Trans by JanSport pink,... More

Bloomberg on the Dearth of Lending

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 5, 2009 at 10:10 AM

Bloomberg has a story on the lack of lending that Michael Lewis and David Einhorn slapped Henry Paulson around for... More

Photojournalists On Working Iraq

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 5, 2009 at 09:58 AM

From the Baghdad Bureau blog at the New York Times, part 1 of a http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/01/world/middleeast/20090101_iraq_photogjnl/index.html ">conversation between Stephen Farrell (a... More

Michael Lewis and David Einhorn on Long-Term Fixes

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 5, 2009 at 09:43 AM

It's only Monday, but I'm pretty confident this piece in The New York Times yesterday will be the must-read of... More

Sign of the Times: A1 Ads

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 5, 2009 at 09:23 AM

From today's New York Times: In its latest concession to the worst revenue slide since the Depression, The New York... More

Journal Finds More Regulatory Failures on Madoff

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 5, 2009 at 08:35 AM

The Journal reports out the "serial regulatory failures" that allowed Bernard Madoff to perpetuate the bigges Ponzi scheme in history.... More

Report from the Tupperware Circuit, Part II

The public vents, the press takes notice

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 5, 2009 at 08:19 AM

Before Christmas, we urged the press to cover the community meetings called by Obama’s health chief Tom Daschle in order... More

Best of 2008: Katia Bachko

Bachko picks her top stories from 2008

By Katia Bachko   Jan 5, 2009 at 12:00 AM

1. Suicide Watch "Correlation doesn't equal causation" is one of the most helpful ideas that journalists can borrow from the... More

Citizen Mailer

In his finest work, Norman Mailer applied subjective journalism to the powerful, and to himself

By Tom Piazza   Jan 5, 2009 at 12:00 AM

Early in Norman Mailer’s The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History, the poet Robert... More

RTE’s New Year Wishes

New year’s resolutions for corrections and accuracy

By Craig Silverman   Jan 2, 2009 at 03:13 PM

Several months ago, I received a phone call from an editor at a major U.S. newspaper. He explained that his... More

Best of 2008: Jane Kim

Kim picks her top stories from 2008

By Jane Kim   Jan 2, 2009 at 12:00 PM

1) Vulgus, Schmulgus Bill Kristol used precious column space in the NYT to write unproductively and misleadingly about a... More

Audit Rewind: Elinore Longobardi’s Best of 2008

A handful of her picks from last year

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 1, 2009 at 09:05 PM

1) The Great Man Theory and Hank Paulson The press often seeks out and artificially creates a Big Man in... More

Best of 2008: Trudy Lieberman

Lieberman picks her top stories from 2008

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 1, 2009 at 03:10 PM

1) Health Care on the Mississippi By showing how real people would fare under the proposals of both candidates, the... More

Excluded Voices Archive

An archive of all entries in Trudy Lieberman’s “Excluded Voices” series

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 1, 2009 at 12:56 PM

Here are the links to every entry in Trudy Lieberman’s “Excluded Voices” series, in descending order. 08/18/09: Excluded Voices -... More