The Week That Was: In Which We Were All Twits

The week in new media

By Megan Garber   Feb 27, 2009 at 05:05 PM

The Rocky Mountain News published its final edition. RIP. The San Francisco Chronicle might well be next. So might the... More

Newsday’s Play to Pay

By Megan Garber   Feb 27, 2009 at 02:57 PM

So, yesterday, Newsday executives announced that they'll begin charging for content on the Long Island paper's Web site. "Our goal... More

An Incomplete Disclosure

By Clint Hendler   Feb 27, 2009 at 02:34 PM

After President Obama finished outlining his new Iraq plan in an address this morning at Camp Lejeune—and, for the first... More

Fortune: Pimco Too Big to Fail?

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 27, 2009 at 01:41 PM

I'm big on the common-sense idea that if a company is too big to fail that means it should have... More

Where’s the Plan?

The media score well on their first-day budget stories

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 27, 2009 at 12:54 PM

Yesterday morning, a friend e-mailed asking for my take on the President’s plan for health reform. Perhaps she was looking... More

Canceled.

By Megan Garber   Feb 27, 2009 at 12:52 PM

When there was a writers' strike, the Oscars aired. When it rained in London, Wimbledon waited out the storm, then... More

August 31, 2010

By Megan Garber   Feb 27, 2009 at 12:47 PM

President Obama just announced, officially, the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq--news that is no less momentous for... More

Remembering the Rocky

A former Rocky Mountain News president on the end of an era

By Bob Burdick   Feb 27, 2009 at 12:02 PM

Watching a friend die, as those who have shared this intensely emotional experience know, doesn't get easier with practice. The... More

Close to Home

When outlets report errors…about themselves

By Craig Silverman   Feb 27, 2009 at 11:39 AM

One strict rule in the medical profession holds that no doctors can treat themselves or any member of their immediate... More

Above the Fold: Barack’s Bold Budget

“The most radical document of its kind since Reagan’s first year in office”

By Charles Kaiser   Feb 27, 2009 at 11:00 AM

Barack Obama's budget proves he was serious when he promised fundamental change if he became president. Everyone in the MSM... More

Norris on the Fed’s Culpability

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 27, 2009 at 10:05 AM

Floyd Norris makes some very good points about the Federal Reserve this morning in The New York Times, noting that... More

Rocky Mountain, Bye

Rocky Mountain News staffers share their thoughts on the paper’s closing

By Rocky Mountain News staffers   Feb 27, 2009 at 09:23 AM

After learning that the 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News would cease operations today, we invited the paper's staffers to share some... More

BriWi: Yeah, “I don’t Twitter”

By Megan Garber   Feb 27, 2009 at 08:49 AM

Let the word go forth, from this day forward: Brian Williams does not use Twitter. And he will not use... More

Audit Interview: Mark Pittman

“This is a defining moment for business journalism and for Wall Street.”

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 27, 2009 at 08:45 AM

(UPDATE, November 29, 2009: Mark died a couple of days ago. It's a huge loss and we'll have more on... More

Rocky at Rest

By Megan Garber   Feb 27, 2009 at 08:34 AM

The Rocky Mountain News has published its last paper, giving a somber--even funereal--resonance to the term "final edition." "It is... More

The George Will Affair

Post stands by climate column despite widespread criticism; clamor spills over to The New York Times

By Curtis Brainard   Feb 26, 2009 at 07:24 PM

Thought the dust kicked up by George Will’s February 15 column in The Washington Post, “Dark Green Doomsayers,” had settled?... More

On the Road

NPR’s “100 Days” series takes a journalistic road trip

By Megan Garber   Feb 26, 2009 at 05:36 PM

Faye Womack, until recently a worker at a houseboat manufacturing company in southern Kentucky, was just laid off, and has... More

Hurray for the Dolans!

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 26, 2009 at 05:25 PM

Those are words I never thought I'd write. Cablevision is going to start charging readers to view its content, according... More

The Unemployment Line

More context is needed when reporting unemployment statistics

By Haley Sweetland Edwards   Feb 26, 2009 at 04:03 PM

Unemployment numbers, like all good statistics, can be deceiving. Sometime next week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the... More

Dover Opening?

By Clint Hendler   Feb 26, 2009 at 02:17 PM

This afternoon, just after Liz reminded us of the Obama-spurred review of the Pentagon’s rules barring media access to the... More

Spellbound: Miami Herald edition

A local spelling champion is crowned

By Katia Bachko   Feb 26, 2009 at 02:00 PM

To the list of reasons why newspapers must not be allowed to perish, please add the spelling bee. Of the... More

Mothers of Fallen Soldiers Discuss Dover Media Ban

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 26, 2009 at 10:42 AM

While the Obama administration continues, presumably, to review the policy banning the media from photographing the flag-draped coffins of fallen... More

What Took You So Long, Gannett?

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 26, 2009 at 10:36 AM

Gannett, the biggest newspaper chain, has finally cut its dividend, and in a major way. It's a long overdue move... More

“It’s Exhilarating To Be Fired At Age 86…”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 26, 2009 at 10:14 AM

... is how Liz Smith winds down her final New York Post column today. "It's emasculating" to be fired, Smith... More

Reuters on the Scope of Unrest in Europe

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 26, 2009 at 10:12 AM

Reuters has a nice roundup of unrest in Europe—much of it labor protests—it says is being caused by the financial... More

Kenneth’s Response to the “Internet Hoo-Hah”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 26, 2009 at 09:41 AM

Jack McBrayer, the actor who plays 30 Rock's Kenneth The Page, the character to whom many bloggers compared Gov. Bobby... More

Wired and the Math Formula of Doom

A hit, followed by a miss

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 26, 2009 at 08:42 AM

Part of the problem in explaining the genesis of the financial crisis is that much of it was just so... More

Parallel Thoughts

NPR on two implications of Obama’s education ambitions

By Katia Bachko   Feb 25, 2009 at 04:30 PM

In last night's not-State of the Union, President Obama set out some ambitious goals for American eduction, saying "I ask... More

Paper Chase

Former Washington Post editor moves from facts to fiction

By Caroline H. Dworin   Feb 25, 2009 at 04:25 PM

The Rules of the Game By Leonard Downie Jr. | Knopf | 336 pages, $26.95 Leonard Downie Jr. knows newspapers.... More

A Great City Forced to Read Flackery

Is the San Francisco Chronicle a news organization or a publicity service?

By David Cay Johnston   Feb 25, 2009 at 03:56 PM

The number-two story on the front page of SFGate.com Tuesday night, and evidently given prominent play in Wednesday's print version... More

WaPo On The End of Big Pimpin’

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 25, 2009 at 03:56 PM

The Boston Globe recently brought us the story of people "Laid Off And Loving It." Today, the Washington Post introduces... More

In Search of Lost Timelines

The Iraq drawdown extension and the end of the age of the “newsdump”

By Megan Garber   Feb 25, 2009 at 01:28 PM

Yesterday afternoon, during the buildup to last night's State-of-the-Union-in-all-but-name, the administration leaked some rather important information to the press: President... More

FOX Business Fights with FOIA

Bringing in bailout documents—and viewers

By Clint Hendler   Feb 25, 2009 at 01:25 PM

By September 23, the federal government was already facing ample criticism over inadequate disclosure of basic information on its ballooning... More

Calderone Gets To The Bottom of “Oh God”-Gate

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 25, 2009 at 01:14 PM

Politico's Michael Calderone solves the mystery of "Oh God"-Gate -- that is, which MSNBC anchor's voice could be heard last... More

One Black Swan You’ll Never See

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 25, 2009 at 12:37 PM

Nassim Nicholas Taleb of Black Swan fame has a provocative column this morning in the Financial Times—a little too provocative.... More

Mandating Health Coverage Makes a Comeback

The President and the man on the street

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 25, 2009 at 11:57 AM

Last night, with his voice full of force, the President boomed: “Health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait,... More

First Lady’s Arms Inspire Envy, Suspicion (And Fear?)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 25, 2009 at 11:24 AM

Michelle Obama Goes Sleeveless, Again" is the annoyed-sounding headline on Jodi Kantor's post on The Caucus Blog at NYTimes.com, observing... More

Look Who’s Talking Now?

A quiz about the reactions to last night’s presidential address

By Katia Bachko   Feb 25, 2009 at 10:26 AM

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Below you’ll find a list of fifteen slightly obscured quotations from newspapers... More

Assessing Jindal

Critics look past the delivery and slam the speech’s substance

By Jane Kim   Feb 25, 2009 at 10:18 AM

Bobby Jindal, the thirty-seven-year-old governor of Louisiana, delivered the Republican response to Pres. Obama's faux-state-of-the-union address last night. It was... More

“We Will Recover…”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 25, 2009 at 09:55 AM

... is the phrase from President Obama's speech last night that seems to have grabbed headline writers at newspapers across... More

Cooper: “I Guess The Republicans, Then, Are 50 Cent?”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 25, 2009 at 09:32 AM

Cut the deficit in half...."Restart the engine of our prosperity"... Health care reform... The question on many cable commentators lips... More

Journal Inside the Citi Mess

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 25, 2009 at 08:59 AM

The Journal has a very readable story this morning on the tensions between Citigroup and the government. It shows the... More

Betwixt and BeTwitter Prefix Obsessions

By Sara Germano   Feb 24, 2009 at 05:09 PM

All this twalk about Twitter has left me feeling twoverwhelmed. Two tweeks ago, the NYC Twestival (attended by CJR staff... More

Santelli and the White House

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 24, 2009 at 03:10 PM

Rick Santelli continues to make a fool of himself, touring the media to defend his call for a "tea party"... More

Stephanopoulos’s Twitter Misunderstanding

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 24, 2009 at 03:00 PM

"The bass not served w cannabis! 'Pot' short for potato!" read an urgent tweet minutes ago from ABC News's George... More

The Naked Crowd

Let’s talk about privacy in the hyper-digital age

By The Editors   Feb 24, 2009 at 02:09 PM

Last week, The New York Times’s not-quite forgotten lady lobbyist story resurfaced in the news when the paper issued a... More

Divining Obama’s Health Care Budget

Early signals and the need for sharp eyes

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 24, 2009 at 01:31 PM

Sam Stein, who blogs at the Huffington Post, apparently has a pipeline to the health care gods—in this case, a... More

Take Our Pundits To Work Day

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 24, 2009 at 11:46 AM

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs brought MSNBC's Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski (and Morning Joe viewers) on a "behind... More

FT’s Murrow Moment

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 24, 2009 at 10:35 AM

Nationalization is inevitable—and sooner rather than later. That according to the Financial Times's New York banking reporter Francesco Guerrera. I... More

Columbia Journalism Review to Launch First Comprehensive Study of Online Practices of Print Magazines

Initiative is supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

By The Editors   Feb 24, 2009 at 09:00 AM

Every significant magazine in the U.S. either has or is about to set up its own Web site, but according... More

Murdoch Fires Back at the Times

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 24, 2009 at 08:35 AM

The Wall Street Journal fired back at The New York Times story yesterday about Murdoch's newspaper affinity dragging down News... More

Dear Twitter

Advice from everyone’s favorite microblogging service

By Megan Garber   Feb 23, 2009 at 05:34 PM

So Twitter is incredibly trendy of late. Everyone's talking about it...but that doesn't mean that everyone, you know, "gets it."... More

Friedman’s Got Fallon’s Back (Strange Column Alert)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 23, 2009 at 04:14 PM

Marketwatch's Jon Friedman regrets his harsh assessments back when of Katie Couric's first night anchoring The CBS Evening News and... More

Laid Off and Loving It?

The Globe’s facile recessionary trend spotting

By Jane Kim   Feb 23, 2009 at 03:35 PM

The Boston Globe today fronts an article that demonstrates the flaws of imposing a facile story idea on a complicated... More

CJR Audio: Joanna Coles on the Reporter’s Life

By The Editors   Feb 23, 2009 at 02:52 PM

You may not picture Joanna Coles, the editor-in-chief of Marie Claire, scribbling on her legs in a bathroom her notes... More

Ansberry’s Grim Tales of the Non-Retired

By Dean Starkman   Feb 23, 2009 at 02:49 PM

I suspect I'm not the only one who read this WSJ story about workers in their 70s and 80s scuffling... More

A Nice Get On Stanford From the Chronicle

By Dean Starkman   Feb 23, 2009 at 02:44 PM

This Houston Chronicle story from last week contains an interesting interview with a pair of ex-employees, who describe how... More

NYT’s Incomplete Snark Review

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 23, 2009 at 02:20 PM

Yesterday, the New York Times reviewed David Denvy's book, Snark... minus the chapter (yes, chapter) taking down Times columnist Maureen... More

Q and A: St. Petersburg Times’s Bill Adair

Behind the scenes of the Obameter

By Katia Bachko   Feb 23, 2009 at 02:16 PM

Just in time for the inauguration, the St. Petersburg Times expanded its Politifact operation to launch the Obameter, a running... More

A Noisome Joy

Another word that doesn’t mean what it looks like it means

By Merrill Perlman   Feb 23, 2009 at 01:16 PM

Think of all the words that don’t mean what their spellings seem to indicate they mean—among the ones already discussed... More

Column Advice For Paul Krugman

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 23, 2009 at 11:29 AM

In Ryan Lizza's New Yorker profile of Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff and "political John McEnroe" offers... More

Tales from the FBI’s Crypt

WaPo’s Joe Stephens FOIAs the dead

By Clint Hendler   Feb 23, 2009 at 10:58 AM

Last Thursday, readers of The Washington Post woke up to find an interesting— but hardly timely—story on the front page... More

Does This Count As Early Childhood Education Reporting?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 23, 2009 at 10:16 AM

I was about to type up a post observing that according to US News & World Report's "Washington Whispers," Chris... More

Fleischer to WH Press: Don’t “Act Like Fools On National TV”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 23, 2009 at 09:41 AM

Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer predicts White House reporters will "make themselves look bad if left to their... More

NYT on WSJ

By Dean Starkman   Feb 23, 2009 at 08:54 AM

The New York Times does a nice job keeping an eye on its downtown rival this morning, reporting interesting details... More

WSJ Widens Lead On Citi

By Dean Starkman   Feb 23, 2009 at 07:55 AM

The Journal breaks the news that the erstwhile subprime leader is asking the government for more help with an idea... More

Frontline Disappoints

A surprisingly weak effort on the financial crisis; do-over needed

By Elinore Longobardi   Feb 23, 2009 at 06:54 AM

Dismay. That was our response to Frontline’s recent documentary on the financial crisis. And our problem wasn’t even with the... More

From Fly Ash to “Clean” Coal

National media slow to expand excellent local coverage after sludge spills

By Curtis Brainard   Feb 20, 2009 at 05:50 PM

Both the American and Canadian press took a ‘Well, we’ll see,’ attitude toward the announcement yesterday that President Barack Obama... More

What do we want? Democracy! When do we want it? Check our blog.

NYU cuts Internet, student protests die

By Sara Germano   Feb 20, 2009 at 05:38 PM

The students behind the occupation of a NYU student center cafeteria saw their protest end quickly this afternoon when, after... More

OPENing Up

Scenes from the TimesOPEN conference

By Megan Garber   Feb 20, 2009 at 05:21 PM

The crowd at TimesOPEN skews young, white, male, and Mac. (The only PC laptop in sight, from my perspective, is... More

Santelli’s “Tea Party” Illustrates Press Failure

The mobs want to string up the wrong people

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 20, 2009 at 04:21 PM

As the light from the torches gleans from a million pitchfork tines after Rick Santelli's bizarre, gasket-blowing performance on CNBC... More

FOIA Score: Fox 1 - Bailout Secrecy 0

FBN chalks up key win in documents case

By Dean Starkman   Feb 20, 2009 at 03:16 PM

Fox Business News scored an important victory in the WOBS (War On Bailout Secrecy), when a federal judge in Manhattan... More

iPhone and Public Radio, Almost There

Perfecting mobile radio

By Katia Bachko   Feb 20, 2009 at 02:28 PM

This might old news, but it's so nice, you might as well hear it twice: Last October, National Public Radio,... More

Umm, Not Helpful

By Clint Hendler   Feb 20, 2009 at 01:17 PM

Caroline Kennedy was not the first member of her family to be dismissed for saying "Ummmm" to a member of... More

Here’s to a Decaf Stimulus

More from the energetic Rick Santelli

By Julia Ioffe   Feb 20, 2009 at 12:51 PM

Yesterday, modern-day patriot and CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli shed his reporter’s hat to reveal a hat he had long been... More

The Wise and the Reckless

On the housing plan and the “unscrupulous or irresponsible”

By Jane Kim   Feb 20, 2009 at 12:42 PM

In Phoenix Wednesday, President Obama introduced the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan as an effort that would neither “rescue the... More

87 Suburbs In Search of a City

By Jane Kim   Feb 20, 2009 at 12:37 PM

OK, so that's just what Dorothy Parker said about Los Angeles, and it was 72, not 87. But it does... More

Fallen Brothers

A glimpse at mourning in Philadelphia

By Katia Bachko   Feb 20, 2009 at 11:47 AM

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a rather evocative, somber piece about the ritual of police officers' funerals in a city plagued... More

The News Business Is Changing. Again.

A historical perspective on journalism’s quest for accuracy

By Craig Silverman   Feb 20, 2009 at 11:44 AM

Walter Isaacson began his recent Time essay about the news business by declaring that “the crisis in journalism has reached... More

Twittering TimesOPEN

By Megan Garber   Feb 20, 2009 at 10:13 AM

I'm at the TimesOPEN conference today at The New York Times. In some ways, it suggests the general fusion of... More

Hot Potato With A Time Bomb

A media designer tells the story of the financial crisis

By Katia Bachko   Feb 20, 2009 at 09:57 AM

Can the words "financial crisis" and "delightful" really live in the same sentence? They can when describing designer Jonathan Jarvis's... More

Searching for a home, via Chicago

By Clint Hendler   Feb 20, 2009 at 09:28 AM

Earlier this week, the staff of the Chicago Reader reposted excerpts from a 1972 FAQ-style manifesto the now venerable alt-weekly... More

WSJ Up on BofA

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 20, 2009 at 08:33 AM

The Journal stays ahead on the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch story this morning, with a scoop that the New York... More

Update on Medicare Advantage Plans

The administration’s unfinished business

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 20, 2009 at 07:00 AM

At the tail end of the presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he wanted to reduce the federal government’s overpayments to... More

CNBC Editor: The People Are Revolting!

Santelli plays Mel Brooks playing Louis XVI

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 19, 2009 at 06:05 PM

In the annals of CNBC cluelessness, this morning’s outburst by the channel’s Rick Santelli is up there with the worst.... More

Politico Junkies, Part II

The Mike Allen memo and the state of the journalistic brand

By Megan Garber   Feb 19, 2009 at 05:47 PM

It's tempting to frame the debate between Bill Keller and John Harris--yep, the exchange provoked by Gabe Sherman's much-discussed treatment... More

CJR Rewind: I Was a Tool of Satan

Cartoonist Doug Marlette “maps the dark turn of intolerance”

By Justin Peters   Feb 19, 2009 at 05:16 PM

Last year, I drew a cartoon that showed a man in Middle Eastern apparel at the wheel of a Ryder... More

Strip Tease

Thoughts on the New York Post cartoon controversy from cartoonists and their editors around the country

By Katia Bachko   Feb 19, 2009 at 04:50 PM

Offensive? Misunderstood? Benign? To make sense of Sean Delonas's hotly debated cartoon in Wednesday's New York Post, we spoke with... More

Nothing To See Here, Ms. Iseman

The Times concedes nothing

By Clint Hendler   Feb 19, 2009 at 04:50 PM

The New York Times has just posted a “Note to Readers” regarding last year's highly controversial story that included information... More

The Business Press and the Cult of Personality

A misplaced emphasis on celebrity over substance got us into this mess

By Elinore Longobardi   Feb 19, 2009 at 04:45 PM

In times of great troubles, it is natural to look for a savior, someone who can get us out of... More

Salmonella Detective Story Leaves Stone Unturned

Reporters get the whodunnit, but miss the how-they-dunnit

By Katherine Bagley   Feb 19, 2009 at 03:46 PM

Sifting through the hundreds of news reports on the current salmonella outbreak is like flipping the pages of a Sherlock... More

Winners & Sinners

Kaiser on Delonas, Hertzberg, Rich, Moyers, and more

By Charles Kaiser   Feb 19, 2009 at 01:51 PM

Sinner: Sean Delonas. The New York Post contributor drew a cartoon yesterday depicting two policemen shooting a chimpanzee, with this... More

Transparency Sells!

By Clint Hendler   Feb 19, 2009 at 11:54 AM

A sales sign spotted this morning on Manhattan’s Upper West Side: That would be Obama’s Executive Order 13489, which revoked... More

Micro Machines

By Megan Garber   Feb 19, 2009 at 11:35 AM

So The New York Times's newest "Room for Debate" discussion--following on the heels of its "Battle Plans for Newspapers" collection--concerns... More

Above the Fold: Cruel Intentions?

Savage’s stellar Times piece on Obama’s torture policy

By Charles Kaiser   Feb 19, 2009 at 10:36 AM

Charlie Savage’s piece in yesterday’s New York Times about the Obama administration’s preliminary attitudes toward torture, rendition, and government secrecy... More

Reporter-Rodent

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 19, 2009 at 10:31 AM

Michael Miner was worried he'd have nothing to tell the young, aspiring journalists at an upcoming panel discussion. After talking... More

The Record and the Star-Ledger: And Now They’re Frenemies

By Megan Garber   Feb 19, 2009 at 10:26 AM

In some ways, it's innovative; in others, it's a tale as old as time. Former Sworn Enemies--in this case, the... More

“Bait[ing]” Sasha Obama

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 19, 2009 at 09:55 AM

Having filed her official Washington Post column about her recent ride with fellow columnists (Bob Herbert, Ron Brownstein, E.J. Dionne,... More

Really, Forbes?

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 19, 2009 at 09:54 AM

I don't think it's quite time to start calling this economic crisis a depression, as if it's just a fact.... More

A Laurel to the AP

For telling us who may not be at the table

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 19, 2009 at 09:45 AM

Earlier this week the AP sent out a story that offered some clues to the future of health reform and... More

Romenesko Misconstrues Google on “Scribes of Drivel”

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 19, 2009 at 09:14 AM

Jim Romenesko misreads the point (Link is now dead. See update below) Google veep Jonathan Rosenberg is trying to make... More

LAT’s’s Hiltzik Spells It Out

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 19, 2009 at 08:39 AM

The Los Angeles Times's Michael Hiltzik has been off to a good start with his return to column-writing. Today, he... More

Somali U.N. Official Calls For “Truce”…”In Reporting”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 18, 2009 at 04:28 PM

"Why is a U.N. diplomat comparing Somali reporters to Rwandan war criminals?" asks Anna Husarska, a senior policy adviser at... More

Victorie, Victoria, Victor

On calling the passage of the stimulus bill Obama’s “victory”

By Jane Kim   Feb 18, 2009 at 04:22 PM

New York Times columnist Frank Rich’s thoughts turned to victory this weekend: “The stimulus victory showed that even as president... More

FT’s Wolf on the Coming ‘Lost Decade’

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 18, 2009 at 03:00 PM

Seven days ago, I wrote that Martin Wolf's urgent warning about the dismal "Bank Bailout II (This Time We Mean... More

The Search for a Happy Ending

A film critic gives his London childhood the Hollywood treatment

By Michelle Vellucci   Feb 18, 2009 at 01:22 PM

Try to Tell the Story By David Thomson | Knopf | $23.95 In Try to Tell the Story, film critic... More

Politico Junkies: The Memo

By Megan Garber   Feb 18, 2009 at 01:17 PM

So yesterday I posted a piece looking at the dubious PR strategies employed by Politico and so astutely analyzed in... More

“NY Post In Obama-Chimp-Stimulus-Racism Flap…”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 18, 2009 at 01:02 PM

... right where the tabloid wants to be? For more on this "flap," see first here, and then here and,... More

CJR Audio: Tina Brown on Life on the Web

The editor and founder of The Daily Beast speaks about developing a sensibility for her new site

By The Editors   Feb 18, 2009 at 12:23 PM

Tina Brown, the newest member in the aggregation gang, spoke at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism last week.... More

Strange Times

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 18, 2009 at 12:11 PM

Did you ever think you'd see this on the front page of the Financial Times? Think back a year and... More

CJR Audio: David Andelman on Media Integration

The editor of World Policy Journal reflects on journalism across media platforms

By The Editors   Feb 18, 2009 at 11:43 AM

In late January, David Andelman, editor of World Policy Journal, spoke at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism about... More

The Obama Telenovela

Cubans seek out news from America

By Julia Ioffe   Feb 18, 2009 at 11:16 AM

It was on our first morning in Havana that my friend and I discovered how obsessively Cubans have been following... More

Lingering Denial

The unfortunate case of a few pundits with too much influence

By Curtis Brainard   Feb 18, 2009 at 11:15 AM

Last week at the Huffington Post, John Delicath, the director of the Media Matters Action Network, quoted an article of... More

Panhandle in Polk-Worthy Prose

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 18, 2009 at 11:08 AM

Gay Talese! You just won a George Polk Award for career achievement! What will you do next? Apparently, this. More

“Media Being All Over” Bristol

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 18, 2009 at 10:35 AM

Fox News squeezed a second night out of Greta Van Susteren's interview with 18-year-old Bristol Palin (mother of baby Tripp... More

Can’t Touch This

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 18, 2009 at 10:22 AM

Try as they might, U.S. tabloids and cable news folks just can't sex up a chimp attack quite like the... More

Talking Back To Headlines

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 18, 2009 at 10:04 AM

AP: "'Truth commission' could spark more partisanship" Me: Ya think? More

The Stanford Financial Scandal

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 18, 2009 at 09:48 AM

I've got several thoughts on the Stanford Financial story. First, I think some of the press is a bit misleading... More

Is Your Blog Among Time’s “25 Best?”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 18, 2009 at 09:30 AM

Talkingpointsmemo tops the list. Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish made the cut, as did Paul Krugman's The Conscience of a... More

WSJ Is Incredible on Foreclosure Court

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 18, 2009 at 08:36 AM

The Journal has a superb A1 story today about a foreclosure "rocket docket" in Florida that gives homeowners fifteen or... More

Politico Junkies

Where’s the line between selling yourself and selling out?

By Megan Garber   Feb 17, 2009 at 05:23 PM

"I think a lot [of] journalists say there's something ethically and morally wrong about [p.r.]," The Politico's publisher, Robert Allbritton,... More

You Had Us At Chimp Attack

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 17, 2009 at 04:42 PM

That chimp attack in Connecticut? Startling, upsetting story, to say the least. 200-pound pet chimpanzee in Stamford, Connecticut severely mauls... More

Science Journalism Growing Overseas

AAAS meeting highlights dwindling American coverage

By Cristine Russell   Feb 17, 2009 at 03:07 PM

CHICAGO — The story was too good to miss. When cosmologist Paul Davies proposed launching a “mission to earth” to... More

WaPo on Why Geithner Fumbled

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 17, 2009 at 02:51 PM

The Washington Post, apparently very well-sourced at the Treasury Department, has a nice tick-tock explaining Tim Geithner's disappointing performance last... More

The Stimulus Bill and Universal Coverage

The media are AWOL at the first skirmish

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 17, 2009 at 02:22 PM

Just as the deal was being struck on the stimulus package, the News Hour on PBS aired a segment about... More

15 Most-Visited Newspaper Web Sites

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 17, 2009 at 02:07 PM

Neiman Journalism Lab tallied "the top 15 newspaper websites of 2008" by average monthly unique visitors (based on Nielsen Online... More

Workin’ For the Man

Exploring some of the issues with the journalists who have joined the Obama administration

By The Editors   Feb 17, 2009 at 01:43 PM

There’s been much attention lately give to the growing number of journalists who have ditched their press passes and joined... More

And Tomorrow’s Polks?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 17, 2009 at 12:10 PM

It's hard to read about all the outstanding journalism (investigative, international, local, labor, environmental, etc.) recognized by the George Polk... More

Bristol Palin More Comfortable On The Record Than Van Susteren

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 17, 2009 at 10:37 AM

Part 1 of Greta Van Susteren’s interview with Gov. Sarah Palin’s 18-year-old daughter, Bristol Palin (and family), aired last night... More

Bloomberg Digs Into Executive Perks

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 17, 2009 at 10:19 AM

Bloomberg has a good story this morning looking at the executive perks still being paid for by taxpayer-bailed-out Citigroup. It... More

Crisis Crib Notes from the FT

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 17, 2009 at 10:16 AM

If you're still somewhat flummoxed by what caused this financial crisis, head over to the Financial Times site and watch... More

More on Dover Media Ban

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 17, 2009 at 08:58 AM

The Washington Post has a piece today on the Dover media ban, including a brief history of the policy and... More

Presidents Setting

Attempting to punctuate President(s)(s’)(’s) Day

By Merrill Perlman   Feb 16, 2009 at 04:39 PM

We used to have two holidays in February: Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday. Now, we have three, though most of... More

Pelosi: “The Media Did Not Fairly Repesent Them”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 16, 2009 at 04:03 PM

From Salon's Q&A with Alexandra Pelosi (daughter of Nancy, director of Journeys With George) about her new documentary, "Right America:... More

TNR Surveys “The Carnage”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 16, 2009 at 02:26 PM

The current issue of The New Republic offers many ways (long and short, funny and less-so) to worry about journalism... More

Breaking: Luke Russert Has Not “Yet” Begun To Tweet

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 16, 2009 at 01:07 PM

Twitter may be "taking off among Washington journalists," but there are -- believe it or not -- still some reporters... More

“Understand More…” Or Not

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 16, 2009 at 12:01 PM

Maybe you've noticed the odd little circle diagrams below some news articles on The Washington Post's web site? (I hadn't,... More

Wherein MoDo Should Brush up on Her Jane Austen

By Megan Garber   Feb 16, 2009 at 10:07 AM

This post is entirely trivial and nitpicky and superficial. On a related note, it involves Maureen Dowd's latest column. Discussing,... More

Home Alone

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 16, 2009 at 10:02 AM

Secretary of State Clinton is on her first overseas trip for the Obama administration. Over the weekend, CNN's John Roberts... More

No Prizes For Post-Mortems

Two prize-winners say investigations, not explanations, were needed in financial crisis

By Phillip L. Zweig and Stephen P. Pizzo   Feb 16, 2009 at 09:04 AM

It’s media awards season, and journalists who have submitted their best stories for the Pulitzer Prize and other prestigious competitions... More

App-solutely Fabulous

By Megan Garber   Feb 16, 2009 at 08:59 AM

So The New York Times, an organization that has, in the past, struggled with issues of both innovation and transparency,... More

Years the Harper’s Index has existed: 25

By Megan Garber   Feb 16, 2009 at 08:38 AM

Happy Birthday, Harper's Index! Lewis Lapham's widely-emulated-but-never-fully-replicated index--based on the (correct) assumption that “numbers can be made to tell as... More

Happy Presidents Day

By Dean Starkman   Feb 16, 2009 at 07:41 AM

Ryan Chittum is off touring the Lincoln and Washington monuments in search of answers to the great economic questions of... More

“You Have the Press Pass to My Heart,” and Other Journalistic Love Notes

By Megan Garber   Feb 13, 2009 at 05:37 PM

Hey, journos! Happy Valentine's Day (Eve)! If you're in need of a date for tomorrow night--and if you have no... More

“How did my iPhone get so sticky?”

…and other observations from NYC’s Twestival

By Megan Garber   Feb 13, 2009 at 05:36 PM

To clarify: a Twestival is not a Tweetup. There's a sentence I never expected to write. But the clarification is... More

“How did my iPhone get so sticky?”

…and other observations from NYC’s Twestival

By Megan Garber   Feb 13, 2009 at 05:35 PM

To clarify: a Twestival is not a Tweet-Up. Yeah. There's a sentence I never expected to write. But the clarification... More

Watchdogs and Want Ads

By Clint Hendler   Feb 13, 2009 at 04:48 PM

Transparency watchers have been keeping an eye on how various versions of the stimulus bill have spelled out what the... More

The Tina Yothers of MSNBC

Willie Geist on the “unreasonable, unnatural, and probably unsafe” life of an early morning anchor

By Katia Bachko   Feb 13, 2009 at 04:37 PM

The Village Voice's Sound of the City blog has a fun Q&A with the delightfully watchable Willie Geist of MSNBC's... More

CJR Audio: Mort Rosenblum on Foreign Reporting

The editor of Dispatches speaks at Columbia

By The Editors   Feb 13, 2009 at 03:45 PM

On February 5, Mort Rosenblum, the editor of Dispatches magazine, spoke at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The... More

Eisinger on Wilke

A Portfolio editor defends a former WSJ colleague

By Dean Starkman   Feb 13, 2009 at 03:39 PM

Madoff whistleblower Harry Markopolos created a stir in journalism circles last week when he testified that he approached one of... More

Japanese Lessons and Currency Concerns

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 13, 2009 at 03:25 PM

The NYT is good to look at the similarities between Japan's crippling decade-long economic crisis and the one we're now... More

ProPublica on Stimulus Spending

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 13, 2009 at 02:57 PM

Check out this chart from the non-profit investigative journalism group ProPublica. It helpfully lists, line by line, all the spending... More

Science Journalism’s Hope and Despair

‘Niche’ pubs growing as MSM circles the drain

By Curtis Brainard   Feb 13, 2009 at 12:47 PM

About a year and a half ago, I began reporting on a story about the “state” of science journalism, which... More

Glass Houses

Reporting others’ mistakes is an excellent way to be reminded of your own fallibility

By Craig Silverman   Feb 13, 2009 at 11:39 AM

It’s not recognized as one of the fundamentals of the profession, but journalists spend a lot of time pointing out... More

Dart to CNN

Who’s fact checking whom?

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 13, 2009 at 11:13 AM

Anyone listening to CNN Wednesday morning might have been scared to death. The specter of the government coming between doctor... More

Populist Rage, Presumably

Americans are angry these days. Frank Rich says so.

By Haley Edwards   Feb 13, 2009 at 11:00 AM

Last weekend, the Huffington Post ran a full-page, bold-faced headline announcing that The New York Times's Frank Rich had written... More

Change Has Come To Washington

By Clint Hendler   Feb 13, 2009 at 10:33 AM

There's a valuable new report out this week from the Project for Excellence in Journalism quantifying the shifting--and in some... More

Hedgies About to Get Trimmed?

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 13, 2009 at 10:21 AM

The Journal and Bloomberg have very interesting stories on the legal battle between Fairfax Financial Holdings and the short-sellers it... More

NYT Chickens Out on Insolvent Banks

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 13, 2009 at 08:45 AM

The Times runs a front-page piece this morning looking at the argument that much of the nation's banking system, especially... More

The Twitter of the Shrew. No, Seriously.

By Megan Garber   Feb 13, 2009 at 08:39 AM

Hey, did you hear that sound? That dull, rumbling-but-kinda-squeaky noise, echoing and mournful and punctuated with a gaping groan? If... More

Baby Got Beck

By Megan Garber   Feb 13, 2009 at 08:26 AM

Happy Friday, everyone! So, below, Stephen Colbert takes on Glen Beck's new Fox show in a doozy of a satire... More

Merrill in the Public Stocks

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 12, 2009 at 03:40 PM

I like the prominent display The New York Times and the Financial Times give the news that Merrill Lynch made... More

How did transparency fare in stimulus conference?

By Clint Hendler   Feb 12, 2009 at 01:21 PM

Although the stimulus conference committee struck a deal yesterday afternoon, there’s still no public rendering of the final agreement as... More

The Corruption Thing

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 12, 2009 at 12:16 PM

Portfolio's new issue contains an interesting piece by Gary Weiss comparing the problems on Wall Street with the extensive corruption... More

In Defense of Clothing Coverage

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 12, 2009 at 11:35 AM

At the Washington Post columnist Jeanne McManus argues for more, non-"ham-handed" coverage of what Michelle Obama wears: I understand the... More

Attribution We Can Believe In…

Why we’re speaking off the record

By Steve Daley   Feb 12, 2009 at 11:03 AM

“We do not grant anonymity to people who use it as a cover for personal or partisan attack.” - editorial... More

And from the Best of Twitter…

By Megan Garber   Feb 12, 2009 at 11:03 AM

...to the worst. More

Get Shorties

By Megan Garber   Feb 12, 2009 at 10:28 AM

Ah, awards season. If you're a Hollywood celebrity, February is generally a high holy month in which you: spray-tan/crash diet/consult... More

Post Shines on Unemployment Disputes

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 12, 2009 at 10:04 AM

The Washington Post has a great story today looking at how employers are fighting ex-employees' unemployment claims in record numbers.... More

Darwin Mania!

Journalists devote reams to his 200th birthday – does he deserve it?

By Eric Simons   Feb 12, 2009 at 09:53 AM

The problem with Barack Obama, as I’ve been telling friends in the Bay Area for the last few weeks, is... More

Must-Read of the Day

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 11, 2009 at 05:11 PM

Martin Wolf of the Financial Times is on fire over the Geithner/Obama bailout plan. I thought Wolf's lede was over-the-top... More

What Have We Learned?

Climate journalists discuss lessons of the past at AMNH

By Curtis Brainard   Feb 11, 2009 at 04:37 PM

Last night, a panel of distinguished science journalists and one social scientist discussed shifting norms in climate-change coverage at the... More

One More Science Journalism Event…

For the road

By Curtis Brainard   Feb 11, 2009 at 04:07 PM

Yesterday, I wrote a short post about a few all-star science journalism events taking place this week in New York... More

Slate V Puts Weekly Science Roundup On Hold

“Grand Unified Weekly” shelved despite positive response from audiences

By Katherine Bagley   Feb 11, 2009 at 02:21 PM

Last November, Slate V started hosting a snappy, weekly screencast that served as a “science news roundup for the rest... More

Gates Reviewing Media Ban

“Short deadline” for decision

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 11, 2009 at 01:36 PM

The New York Times reports: Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested today that he was open to allowing the media to... More

Attention Is Paid

Fortune’s fine unemployment cover

By Dean Starkman   Feb 11, 2009 at 01:25 PM

Sometimes it’s better just to keep it simple, and in that spirit I give Fortune credit for profiling several unemployed... More

Pressing On State Secrets

The editorials failed, but reporting remains

By Clint Hendler   Feb 11, 2009 at 12:24 PM

After Tom Daschle asked to no longer be considered to become Secretary of Health and Human Services last week, reports... More

What the Stimulus Package Holds for Health Care

The devil indeed lurks in the details

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 11, 2009 at 12:17 PM

It’s not often that the media pay much attention to different versions of a bill when they emerge from the... More

Michelle Obama Cover Coverage

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 11, 2009 at 11:36 AM

Michelle Obama is on the cover of the March issue of Vogue which, of course, generates its own coverage (in... More

Auletta on the Newspaper Death Watch

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 11, 2009 at 11:13 AM

Ken Auletta makes some sharp comments on the perilous state of the news industry in a Q&A with The Boston... More

To Catch A War Criminal?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 11, 2009 at 09:28 AM

Brian Stelter reports in today's New York Times that an NBC News crew and a Rwandan prosecutor, as part of... More

WaPo’s Pearlstein Sticks It to Wall Street

But good

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 11, 2009 at 08:43 AM

Steven Pearlstein has an excellent column today ripping Wall Street for still not getting it. He leads with six columns... More

Q and A: Paul McGeough

The veteran Middle East reporter shares insights about covering conflict in Gaza

By Katia Bachko   Feb 11, 2009 at 07:00 AM

Few stories are as complex and cumbersome as the continuing friction in the Middle East. Modern history mixes with ancient... More

Q and A: Paul McGeough

The veteran Middle East reporter shares insights about covering conflict in Gaza

By Katia Bachko   Feb 11, 2009 at 07:00 AM

Few stories are as complex and cumbersome as the continuing friction in the Middle East. Modern history mixes with ancient... More

The Missing Refrigerator

A writer steps up the race dialogue

By Jane Kim   Feb 11, 2009 at 07:00 AM

Notes from No Man’s Land By Eula Biss | Graywolf Press | 244 pages, $15 "The day I moved into... More

Reading List

A veteran Middle East correspondent recommends a selection of books, papers, and blogs about the region

By Katia Bachko   Feb 11, 2009 at 06:30 AM

For readers interested in a diverse media diet of news about Gaza, Sydney Morning Herald correspondent Paul McGeough offers his... More

Odds & Ends

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 10, 2009 at 06:21 PM

This one-source story in the NYT today bothers me. It's got some analysis, but not much. Couldn't find one independent... More

The Micropayment Model

Why do we keep coming back to the micropayment business model?

By The Editors   Feb 10, 2009 at 04:48 PM

The funding debate continues. And the word du week, this time around, is an oldie-but-goodie: "micropayments." In the current issue... More

Open the Floodgates

And let the audience in

By Susannah Vila   Feb 10, 2009 at 03:09 PM

From the newsroom at CBS, where I have spent the majority of my days since I took a desk assistant... More

Obama’s Asterisks

A better explanation for Obama’s “lobbyist problem”

By Lester Feder   Feb 10, 2009 at 01:55 PM

When Health and Human Services nominee Tom Daschle withdrew from consideration last week, the press began debating whether the Obama... More

CNN’s Toxic Assets Explainer (With Pink Piggy Prop!)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 10, 2009 at 01:35 PM

Have you ever, while watching cable news, felt embarrassed for (even, insulted by) an anchor and something he said or... More

Tapper: “Bad Ass” or “Pissy Little Spat?”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 10, 2009 at 01:31 PM

Is Jake Tapper, ABC News's White House correspondent (and my vote for "Best Question" last night), the "Briefing Room Bad... More

Fox News, Too, Crowdsources Stimulus Bill

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 10, 2009 at 12:52 PM

Megan recently wrote about The Huffington Post "crowdsourcing" its analysis of the stimulus bill and how that effort has worked... More

Science Journalism Events at AMNH, AAAS

By Curtis Brainard   Feb 10, 2009 at 12:33 PM

I don’t generally announce upcoming science journalism events, mostly because my readership is spread out across the country. I might... More

Above the Fold: “The Thrill Is Gone”

Across the Atlantic, Washington’s myopia seems more exaggerated than usual

By Charles Kaiser   Feb 10, 2009 at 12:28 PM

LONDON-- From the other side of the Atlantic, Washington's myopia seems even more exaggerated than usual. Two days ago in... More

CNBC’s Bear Trap

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 10, 2009 at 11:46 AM

CNBC paired noted bears Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Nicholas Taleb yesterday in what could have been a very good arrangement.... More

What HuffPo Getting a Question Means

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 10, 2009 at 11:30 AM

That The Huffington Post Getting A Question at last night's presidential press conference would raise lots of questions was never... More

A-Rod, the WSJ, and A1

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 10, 2009 at 11:20 AM

Why is a huge headshot of Alex Rodriguez taking up half the above-the-fold space on page one of my Wall... More

Mike’s O’Reilly Ambush Lives On!

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 10, 2009 at 09:56 AM

On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart revisited Mike's Memorable Morning At The Bus Stop, a.k.a. his "O'Reilly Ambush." Stewart,... More

LA Times Finds California Farms Not Hiring

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 10, 2009 at 08:37 AM

The LA Times has a very interesting story about how the recession is causing a surplus of farm labor in... More

President Obama’s First News Conference: Superlatives!

Fifty-eight minutes of excitement!

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 10, 2009 at 07:00 AM

Best Question: Jake Tapper, ABC News TAPPER: “The American people have seen hundreds of billions of dollars spent already. And... More

Matthews: “Our Breed Looked Pretty Good Tonight”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 9, 2009 at 09:16 PM

One post-press conference observation from MSNBC's Chris Matthews: Well, I think our breed looked pretty good tonight. I think the... More

“The Gold Standard For Presidential Q-and-A’s”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 9, 2009 at 04:02 PM

With President Obama's prime time news conference hours away, veteran political reporter Walter Shapiro ponders at The New Republic "what... More

NYT: “Boron Moron”

By Curtis Brainard   Feb 9, 2009 at 03:33 PM

My thanks to the Knight Science Journalism Tracker for pointing out a "mea culpa" posted today by The New York... More

The Times on the Times

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 9, 2009 at 03:30 PM

The New York Times's media reporter Richard Perez-Pena plows into the minefield to look at his own company's prospects for... More

Cultured Plurals

Plurals, singulars, and the de-Latinization of English

By Merrill Perlman   Feb 9, 2009 at 03:20 PM

When baseball season starts in just a few short weeks, the New York Yankees will have a new “stadium.” The... More

The Mail

Reviewing recent issues of Oklahoma Today, Cometbus, Playboy, and more

By CJR Staff   Feb 9, 2009 at 02:51 PM

People send us their newspapers and magazines. Sometimes, we review them. Oklahoma Today, Jan/Feb 2009 Oklahoma Today says it's been... More

Froomkin On What Reporters Should Ask Tonight

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 9, 2009 at 02:47 PM

Washingtonpost.com's Dan Froomkin compiled a list of questions he'd like to see asked of President Obama at tonight's prime time... More

White House Press Briefings “Like Little British Tea Parties”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 9, 2009 at 02:28 PM

Yesterday, "author and journalist" Liz Trotta had this exchange with Fox News Live's Eric Shawn (discussion topic: "How Has D.C.... More

Vetting Daschle’s Replacement

And the wisdom of the crowd

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 9, 2009 at 01:07 PM

Call it citizen journalism or citizen participation, but the Internet has been full of stories about Tom Daschle’s would-be replacement... More

Obama on Recovery.gov

By Clint Hendler   Feb 9, 2009 at 12:38 PM

Just moments ago, President Obama, in his town hall-style meeting in unemployment-battered Elkhart, Indiana, just fleshed out his views of... More

Outing: Proposed Micropayment Models “Point to Doom”

By Megan Garber   Feb 9, 2009 at 12:28 PM

The latest from new media guru Steve Outing's Twitter feed: "Isaacson, Brill, Mutter, et al. Tired arguments on failed micropayments... More

Sullivan: Newspaper Web Sites Should Go Dark For a Week

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 9, 2009 at 12:16 PM

Earlier, I linked to Steve Brill's "secret" memo to the New York Times urging them to start charging online readers.... More

Twitter: The Dharma Initiative Edition

By Megan Garber   Feb 9, 2009 at 12:03 PM

So here's an email I wasn't prepared to receive last night: Hi, Megan Garber (megangarber). Dalai Lama (OHHDL) is now... More

Sully v. Sully v. Octuplets’ Mom

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 9, 2009 at 10:51 AM

As far as network morning news show viewers know, there is but one story in the news today. According to... More

Brill To NYT: You Are Not Fungible

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 9, 2009 at 09:57 AM

Someone emailed to Romenesko a "confidential memo" written by Steve Brill late last year urging the New York Times to... More

Journal Is Wide-Eyed on a Potential Rebound

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 9, 2009 at 09:48 AM

The Journal is too contrarian for the sake of it in an Outlook column positing that the economy could be... More

Newsweekly No More

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 9, 2009 at 09:27 AM

Jon Meacham, Newsweek's editor, describes the thinking behind the magazine's planned makeover: "There’s a phrase in the culture, ‘we need... More

NYT Catches Up with the Stock Analysts

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 9, 2009 at 08:29 AM

Stock analysts have been overlooked in this crisis, despite having a prominent role in the last stock crash just eight... More

Excluded Voices

An interview with Timothy Jost

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 9, 2009 at 07:00 AM

The past year’s health care discussion has been remarkable for the narrow range of ideas and opinions that have floated... More

Chart of the Day

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 6, 2009 at 05:52 PM

Karen Tumulty at Time posts this chart from Speaker Pelosi showing how much worse the job losses have been in... More

The $64 Billion Tax Break

NYT and Post downplay the Senate stimulus bill’s upper-middle class tax break

By Haley Edwards   Feb 6, 2009 at 05:34 PM

The top stories in both The New York Times and The Washington Post today focused on the bipartisan Senate committee... More

Wilke Was Itching to Go After the Madoff Story

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 6, 2009 at 05:10 PM

CORRECTION: In this post I said the Madoff story got caught up in the "Journal's labyrinthine editorial structure." In fact,... More

Newspapers: “the iPods of 1690”

By Megan Garber   Feb 6, 2009 at 04:54 PM

Ken Paulson, ex-USA Today editor, imagines a world in which newspapers came after the Internet, rather than the other way... More

Heds and Tails

By Megan Garber   Feb 6, 2009 at 04:47 PM

Say what you will about the content of the column; Charles Krauthammer's WaPo op-ed today has an undeniably phenomenal headline. More

Gibbs: 1; Transparency: 0

By Megan Garber   Feb 6, 2009 at 04:36 PM

Not cool, Mr. Gibbs. Witness the following exchange between President Obama's press secretary and ABC's Jake Tapper. Then recall the... More

Paper Chase: A Q&A with Randy Siegel

The Newspaper Project leader on why newspapers will endure

By Megan Garber   Feb 6, 2009 at 04:15 PM

Monday's New York Times, as well as around 400 other newspapers and magazines, featured a full-page ad, its lettering yellow... More

See-Through Stimulus

Is Capitol Hill writing a transparent recovery?

By Clint Hendler   Feb 6, 2009 at 03:36 PM

As the Senate rips pages out of the prospective stimulus bill, the world seems focused on where the money is... More

“I Use It as Makeshift Kitty Litter!”

By Megan Garber   Feb 6, 2009 at 03:31 PM

For those of you who, like us, firmly believe that the term "Weekender" is a). incredibly annoying, b). appropriate as... More

Newsweek’s “The District”—Like, That’s Hot.

By Sara Germano   Feb 6, 2009 at 03:12 PM

It’s not easy to satirize President Obama. Without any significant blemishes on his young political career, nor even any distinctive... More

More on Madoff and the Journal

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 6, 2009 at 01:26 PM

Jason Linkins of The Huffington Post runs through the email correspondence between Madoff's would-be slayer Harry Markopolos and WSJ reporter... More

“We’ve been living like outrageous pigs in this country for a long time”

By Megan Garber   Feb 6, 2009 at 11:54 AM

The New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert spoke at Yale on Wednesday--discussing issues of climate change and of our porcine lifestyles...but also... More

Checklist Charlie

Checklists can help journalists do better work

By Craig Silverman   Feb 6, 2009 at 11:44 AM

In 1935, Boeing Corporation almost went bankrupt after its Model 299 long-range bomber literally crashed and burned during a U.S.... More

Crowded

Huffington Post crowdsources its analysis of the stimulus package

By Megan Garber   Feb 6, 2009 at 11:34 AM

The text of H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is 647 pages long. The draft version... More

Audit Interview: Mark Maremont

“Journalism, unfortunately—and even more these days—seems to be backward-looking.”

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 6, 2009 at 11:11 AM

Mark Maremont is one of The Wall Street Journal's top investigative reporters (and a senior editor), focusing much of his... More

Baucus Watch, Part V

Smoke signals—when exactly will health reform happen?

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 6, 2009 at 10:44 AM

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

The Big Money on Michael Lewis

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 6, 2009 at 10:08 AM

The Big Money, Slate's business site, runs a nice appreciation of Michael Lewis by its reporter Chadwick Matlin. Matlin not... More

Biz Press Largely Misses the TARP News

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 6, 2009 at 09:15 AM

The financial press way underplays a report by the TARP oversight panel that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson lied to the... More

Anchors Away

By Megan Garber   Feb 6, 2009 at 07:11 AM

Happy Friday, everyone. Below, The Daily Show on President Obam-ea Culpa's most recent media tour (worth watching all the way... More

Tweets of the Rich(ish) and Famous(like)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 5, 2009 at 02:06 PM

I guess A-List Hollywood has not yet caught the Twitter bug. How else to explain the appearance of CNN's Rick... More

Defining “Middle Class”

Joe Biden and the White House Task Force on the Middle Class

By Daniel Luzer   Feb 5, 2009 at 02:05 PM

In the midst of the debates leading up to the recent presidential election, the governor of Alaska said something to... More

Clueless Quote of the Day

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 5, 2009 at 02:00 PM

From a Journal story about how Wall Street is canceling junkets to luxury resorts. The Morgan Stanley decision comes as... More

This Post Has Nothing to Do with the Crisis

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 5, 2009 at 12:46 PM

And now for a much-deserved break from all the bad news. The Journal runs a terrific "ahed"—the name for the... More

Winners & Sinners

Kaiser on Daschle, Newsweek, Philip Bennett, and more

By Charles Kaiser   Feb 5, 2009 at 12:02 PM

Winners: Barack Obama, and the American people, for not getting Tom Daschle as their new Secretary of Health and Human... More

Late Filing

By Clint Hendler   Feb 5, 2009 at 11:02 AM

There's something missing from the top of this New York Times story on how "competing ambitions" for "Washington's financial rewards"... More

Have Reporters Gone “Pong Slayer” On The Stimulus Bill?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 5, 2009 at 10:56 AM

Whose In Defense of The Stimulus Bill, Which Republicans Have Given A Bad Name-themed op-ed today do you prefer: E.J.... More

WSJ Dominating the BofA Story

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 5, 2009 at 10:35 AM

The Journal has an excellent tick-tock on the deal between Merrill and Bank of America, showing how the government stared... More

Even Walter Isaacson…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 5, 2009 at 10:10 AM

"...has quit subscribing to the New York Times, because if it doesn't see fit to charge for its content, I'd... More

A New Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy’s new Web site seamlessly blends academia and journalism

By Kathy Gilsinan   Feb 5, 2009 at 09:58 AM

A month ago, Foreign Policy magazine debuted a new cast of bloggers at its Web site. It’s a pretty dramatic... More

National Geographic Launches New Energy Team

Reaffirms editorial, educational commitment to environmental issues

By Megan McGinley   Feb 5, 2009 at 09:00 AM

Last week, National Geographic magazine announced the formation of a new, specialized editorial team that will focus on “deepening” and... More

The Times Looks at Executive Perks

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 5, 2009 at 08:41 AM

The New York Times takes a good look this morning at the excessive executive perks yet to be wrung out... More

Markopolos the Media Critic

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 4, 2009 at 04:21 PM

It's, ahem, interesting to see Hero Harry Markopolos's take on Murdoch as the Journal takeover was proceeding. This in an... More

Markopolos and the Journal

The whistleblower says he called with a tip

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 4, 2009 at 03:58 PM

Gary Weiss is all over a bit of news this morning that Harry Markopolos, the Madoff whistleblower tried to get... More

Well Endowed

Would philanthropic endowments save newspapers—or destroy them?

By The Editors   Feb 4, 2009 at 02:37 PM

Last week, a New York Times op-ed proposed a novel way to save newspapers: “Turn them into nonprofit, endowed institutions... More

President, “Spotlight Hog?”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 4, 2009 at 01:40 PM

This morning, MSNBC asked (via chyron), whether President Obama is "Losing His Luster?" And if so, CNN -- via its... More

Bipartisan Talk

WaPo discusses the word at length

By Jane Kim   Feb 4, 2009 at 11:35 AM

Monday’s Washington Post had an oddly long take on “bipartisanship” gracing its front page. Is bipartisanship about the act of... More

Wake Up, Wall Street and Washington

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 4, 2009 at 11:30 AM

Steven Pearlstein has a good take in the Washington Post on the reckoning that's starting to dawn on the power... More

Presidential Interview “Lightening Rounds”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 4, 2009 at 11:11 AM

Of the five TV interviews President Obama sat for yesterday, two involved, toward the end, what the anchors described as... More

AP: “The Audacity of Acknowledging Poor Judgment”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 4, 2009 at 09:37 AM

The AP finds a similar refrain throughout President Obama's five TV interviews yesterday. Regarding his handling of the Daschle nomination:... More

Trade Skepticism Gets an Airing

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 4, 2009 at 08:46 AM

It's all too rare to see skepticism of free trade in the business press, much less a full-throated attack on... More

Global vs. Regional Trends

A common problem in climate coverage

By Curtis Brainard   Feb 4, 2009 at 07:00 AM

On January 1, the Daily Tech, an online magazine, published a somewhat misleading blog post about the “rapid recovery” of... More

Two Lives

The bifurcated existence of a Gilded Age celebrity

By Elinore Longobardi   Feb 4, 2009 at 07:00 AM

Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line By Martha Sandweiss | The Penguin... More

The Daschle Dilemma

Let’s step up scrutiny of the cabinet picks

By Katia Bachko   Feb 3, 2009 at 04:34 PM

Earlier today, former senator Tom Daschle—embroiled in controversy over $128,000 in unpaid taxes—withdrew from consideration for the Secretary of Health... More

Its, The Economy Stoopid

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 3, 2009 at 04:32 PM

Reports MSNBC: [W]hile blunders and bloopers have ever exasperated the spelling snobs and grammar grunions of the world, our recent... More

Tough Times

The New York Times goes slightly tone-deaf on the plight of the non-wealthy

By Katia Bachko   Feb 3, 2009 at 04:21 PM

As the economy continues to unravel, editors at The New York Times are keeping close tabs on how wealthy people... More

CNBC Gets the Munchies

Legalizing pot and looking within

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 3, 2009 at 02:24 PM

Watching CNBC, I was about to get ticked about the incessant reporting over the Michael Phelps smoking dope story. Who... More

The Journal’s Citi Scoop—Don’t Bet Against It

Having learned a lesson, I certainly won’t

By Dean Starkman   Feb 3, 2009 at 01:57 PM

The WSJ's David Enrich and colleagues Matthew Futterman and Damian Paletta uncork another valuable scoop from deep inside Citigroup's boardroom... More

My O’Reilly Ambush

A CJR editor’s unexpected interview

By Mike Hoyt   Feb 3, 2009 at 01:26 PM

My usual bus-stop companions are an Irish man with an interesting cap and a tall young Indian woman with a... More

Daschle “Read NYT,” “Called The President”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 3, 2009 at 11:30 AM

On MSNBC earlier this afternoon, Andrea Mitchell described her phone call with Tom Daschle today and how he came to... More

Iraqi Newspapers: Elections (And Egyptian Actresses)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 3, 2009 at 10:38 AM

The New York Times's Baghdad Blog surveys Iraqi newspaper coverage of the provincial elections. While official election results are not... More

Who Will Be at the Table? Part V

The hospitals begin to take their seats

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 3, 2009 at 10:20 AM

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

Dowd Rips the Street

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 3, 2009 at 10:00 AM

I'm no Maureen Dowd fan (and even less of a Tom Friedman one), but I have to applaud her column... More

Career Change?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 3, 2009 at 09:36 AM

From today's New York Times: An unusual number of journalists from prominent, mainstream organizations started new government jobs in January,... More

Great Times Piece on Wall Streeters’ Shame

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 3, 2009 at 08:56 AM

The Times has an amusing story this morning on what it's like for Wall Streeters now that they're goats instead... More

Headline News From Lauer’s Obama Interview

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 2, 2009 at 02:08 PM

What news was made during Matt Lauer's Super Bowl Sunday interview with President Obama on NBC? What's the headline? Depends,... More

A Frayed Knot of Words

The difference between “homonym” and “homophone”

By Merrill Perlman   Feb 2, 2009 at 01:18 PM

Last week’s posting discussed sound-alike words that are often mistaken for one another, despite their different meanings. That brought a... More

The Protectionism Bogeyman

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 2, 2009 at 12:55 PM

There's a movement afoot in the financial press, especially in globalist publications like The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times,... More

Madoff-ed in Ventura County

The Star’s source blames a Madoff-linked firm for a fund-raising fiasco, disappears

By Dean Starkman   Feb 2, 2009 at 10:58 AM

Audit Financial Journalism Ethics Quiz: Advanced Placement Final. 1. A newspaper that accurately quotes someone saying something that is almost... More

Groundhog Tweets

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 2, 2009 at 09:48 AM

Looks like Gen. Beauregard Lee has finally found a way to get out from under Punxsutawney Phil's shadow: "Georgia groundhog... More

Mr. Daschle and His Speaking Fees

What “policy advice” did he give to United Healthcare?

By Trudy Lieberman   Feb 2, 2009 at 09:24 AM

Only the naïve would expect a public official to be pure as an angel these days, what with today’s megabuck... More

“Thank God The Newspaper Exists…”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Feb 2, 2009 at 09:23 AM

...said Russian President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Novaya Gazeta, "an independent newspaper that has established itself as one of the... More

Reports of the Malls’ Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

By Ryan Chittum   Feb 2, 2009 at 08:48 AM

The Times on Sunday tossed off a variation of that old journalism standby, "The Death of the Mall," going to... More