Nerve Center

“Enervate” is not “energetic”

By Merrill Perlman   Aug 31, 2009 at 04:43 PM

Context clues are wonderful things. With them, a writer can load an article with lots of unusual or unfamiliar words... More

Blame Reporters, Bloggers And Readers…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 31, 2009 at 04:21 PM

Yesterday, Washington Post ombud Andrew Alexander wrote about readers' requests for "more explanatory journalism" on health care reform (and less... More

NYT’s Rejoinder on Obama and the Deficit

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 31, 2009 at 02:48 PM

Last Wednesday, I got on the Washington Post for a poor page-one story on the $9 trillion budget deficit—a piece... More

The Economy Today: Profits and Losses

Keeping the ledger as the feds play banker

By Alexandra Fenwick   Aug 31, 2009 at 01:44 PM

In a twist on the reductive Main Street vs. Wall Street narrative in the government bailout story, the New York... More

Sri Lankan Journalist Found Guilty of “Creat[ing] Communal Disharmony”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 31, 2009 at 12:05 PM

Via AP: A Sri Lankan reporter singled out by President Barack Obama as an example of persecuted journalists around the... More

NYT Mag’s $400K Story: A Cost Breakdown

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 31, 2009 at 11:45 AM

Clara Jeffery at Mother Jones got the New York Times Magazine's editor, Gerald Marzorati, to break down, via email, the... More

CJR’s Town Hall Archive

Links to every entry in Trudy Lieberman’s series

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 31, 2009 at 11:45 AM

Below, you will find links to every entry in Trudy Lieberman’s “CJR's Town Hall Meetings” series, in descending order. 12/02/11:... More

CJR’s Town Hall Meetings, Part I

The view from Starbucks at Fifteenth and Third

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 31, 2009 at 11:45 AM

Everyone, it seems, is trying to take the pulse of the electorate—Americans who, as the saying goes, vote with their... More

“A First Television Job on Today Is” Like…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 31, 2009 at 11:04 AM

President Bush's daughter, Jenna (Bush) Hager, has been hired as a "special correspondent" for NBC's Today show (my money would... More

Bloomberg on the Derivatives Lobby

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 31, 2009 at 10:30 AM

Bloomberg this morning takes a hard look on the Wall Street lobby, writing that it's "suiting up for a battle... More

Can Science Be “Humanized?”

Or is democracy doomed, Harper’s wonders

By Curtis Brainard   Aug 31, 2009 at 09:38 AM

There is a hauntingly dystopian headline in the September issue of Harper’s Magazine: “Dehumanized: When math and science rule the... More

Chris Wallace, Cheney Groupie?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 31, 2009 at 09:37 AM

Andrew Sullivan's take on Chris Wallace's interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday on Fox News Sunday: Now look:... More

The People Have Spoken

Can presidents sway public opinion on divisive domestic issues?

By Greg Marx   Aug 31, 2009 at 07:00 AM

A few weeks ago, in the course of arguing that the press was overemphasizing the role President Barack Obama could... More

BBC Reports on a Row in Afghanistan

By Greg Marx   Aug 28, 2009 at 03:51 PM

So it seems the Obama administration has some concerns about the election in Afghanistan. From the BBC*: The US special... More

What’s Going Down on the Farm? Ask the Bankers

The devolution of The Wall Street Journal’s page one

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 28, 2009 at 03:51 PM

Gawker had an interesting quote from an anonymous Wall Street Journal staffer this morning on the Mark Penn controversy. "While... More

Because it’s Friday: Minotaur Edition

By Clint Hendler   Aug 28, 2009 at 03:22 PM

Politico's Ben Smith passes on this Onion News Network clip, where a panel of Onion-esque experts debate whether or not... More

Laurel to T.R. Reid

For extraordinary clarity in explaining foreign health systems

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 28, 2009 at 01:39 PM

As I have posted many times on Campaign Desk, the media, for the most part, has hardly touched how health... More

Journalist feels neutral-to-negative about being profiled by the military

By Alexandra Fenwick   Aug 28, 2009 at 01:21 PM

P.J. Tobia, a writer and reporter based in Kabul, has gotten his hands on his Rendon report - the background... More

WaPo: Big Bad Banks Are Getting Bigger, Badder

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 28, 2009 at 01:04 PM

The Washington Post has a story after my own heart this morning on how the Too Big to Fail guys... More

The Economy Today: On the Jobs

Tracking stimulus job creation is tricky business

By Alexandra Fenwick   Aug 28, 2009 at 12:34 PM

Yesterday's New York Times featured a great article by Patrick McGeehan, headlined “Tallying Stimulus Jobs Not Easy in New York.”... More

Silencing the critics - Italy’s Berlusconi sues the competition

By Alexandra Fenwick   Aug 28, 2009 at 12:10 PM

Italian Prime Minister and media mogul, Silvio Berlusconi, is suing left-leaning newspaper, La Repubblica, along with papers in Britain and... More

A Model for Sustainable Journalism, Discovered

By Greg Marx   Aug 28, 2009 at 12:01 PM

Matthew Yglesias is moved by one of those "only-in-Japan" stories to ponder the future of journalism: I also have the... More

A Needless Ethical Slip

By Dean Starkman   Aug 28, 2009 at 10:59 AM

The WSJ’s current ethical snafu of hiring the head of a global PR giant to write a column, even on... More

Play of The Day

By Clint Hendler   Aug 28, 2009 at 10:37 AM

I see that Greg has just made the welcome and requisite point that after a long period where The New... More

TNR Takes a Walk Down ‘The Avenue’

By Greg Marx   Aug 28, 2009 at 10:33 AM

To readers who follow the idiosyncracies of the political journalism world, the most notable feature of the The New Republic’s... More

Lost in Translation

When the ‘schlong’ word is the wrong word

By Craig Silverman   Aug 28, 2009 at 10:05 AM

It was a perfect silly season story, an article tailor made for the dog days of August. Tuesday morning broke... More

Q & A: Charles Sennott

GlobalPost’s founder talks about his site’s recent multimedia Afghanistan package

By Alexandra Fenwick   Aug 28, 2009 at 06:30 AM

GlobalPost co-founder Charles Sennott recently spoke to CJR about his news outlet’s recent partnering with MediaStorm for their multimedia story... More

FOI MIA at the FDIC

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 27, 2009 at 08:40 PM

American Banker reported earlier this week that the FDIC has done an about-face on disclosure—and not in the right direction.... More

Brill Rakes Muck in NYC Schools

Fine urban-affairs reporting in the New Yorker. More please.

By Dean Starkman   Aug 27, 2009 at 05:30 PM

Steven Brill’s New Yorker story on the quagmire that is the New York City school system is an example of... More

Stars and Stripes: Military Profiling Reporters

By Greg Marx   Aug 27, 2009 at 03:41 PM

At The Washington Independent, Spencer Ackerman flags a pair of stories from Stars and Stripes reporting that journalists who seek... More

A Solid Piece on Afghan Politics

Times shines a light on Karzai’s circle

By Greg Marx   Aug 27, 2009 at 02:03 PM

We’ve been asking recently for more reporting that contextualizes the turbulent political situation in Afghanistan, and explores what that situation... More

Core Competencies

Alex Jones on why we must maintain the “iron core of news”

By Steve Weinberg   Aug 27, 2009 at 01:54 PM

Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy | By Alex S. Jones | Oxford University Press... More

The Times Magazine Drops its 13,000-Word Story

By Greg Marx   Aug 27, 2009 at 01:43 PM

When New York Times Magazine editor Gerald Marzorati, in the course of pondering the future of long-form journalism in a... More

One Story, Two Angles from the WSJ and NYT

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 27, 2009 at 10:37 AM

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal don't agree on what happened yesterday with a new rule governing private-equity... More

Election? What Election?

Debate on Afghanistan should reflect their politics, too

By Greg Marx   Aug 27, 2009 at 06:30 AM

Scott Wilson and Joshua Partlow had a front-page story in The Washington Post yesterday that explored the “political test” President... More

A Post Deficit Story Ignores the Obvious

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 26, 2009 at 08:33 PM

There's a word missing from the Washington Post's lead story this morning on the budget deficit: "Bush." Its absence goes... More

Dowd’s (Kinda Hollow) Who Are You

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 26, 2009 at 03:16 PM

Today, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asks, of people who write nasty things anonymously online, "Who are these people... More

The Right Way to Say Goodbye

The conservative blogosphere remembers Ted Kennedy

By Greg Marx   Aug 26, 2009 at 01:22 PM

As obituaries published today by major newspapers make clear, Edward Kennedy, the senior senator from Massachusetts who died of brain... More

NYT’s Floyd Norris Audits The Audit

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 26, 2009 at 01:02 PM

New York Times columnist Floyd Norris takes issue with my post Friday which noted that his column Friday said the... More

Media Hype Swine Flu Report

Coverage of possible death toll ranges from wrong to remedial

By Curtis Brainard   Aug 26, 2009 at 12:58 PM

On Monday, the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology released a report (pdf) about the possible impact of... More

NYT’s “Arab Press Roundup”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 26, 2009 at 12:52 PM

The New York Times online has an interesting, if brief, roundup of "discussions inside the Arab world, as played out... More

Kennedy, in Campaign Buttons

By Megan Garber   Aug 26, 2009 at 12:43 PM

NPR's resident "Political Junkie," Ken Rudin, offers a retrospective on Ted Kennedy's long political life...by way of his campaign buttons. More

Ted Kennedy’s Health Care Legacy

Reporting on the lion

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 26, 2009 at 12:31 PM

I met Sen. Ted Kennedy only once. He showed up one winter night at the home of former Labor Secretary... More

Hoarse to Horse: Health Care Coverage “Storyline Shifted Last Week”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 26, 2009 at 11:16 AM

Per PEJ's News Coverage Index, "the debate over health care proved to be the No. 1 story" for the fifth... More

Found: Another “Calm,” “Respectful” Town Hall Questioner

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 26, 2009 at 10:01 AM

Yesterday, New York Times readers met Bob Collier, a man who did not yell while expressing at a recent town... More

Criticizing Obama’s Bernanke Nomination

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 26, 2009 at 09:45 AM

The Battle of Bernanke has begun. Yesterday, the Journal broke the news that Obama would renominate Bernanke to run the... More

Kennedy: An Obituary in Multimedia

By Megan Garber   Aug 26, 2009 at 09:35 AM

The Boston Globe has a powerful multimedia retrospective of the life of Teddy Kennedy -- complete with photo slideshows, videos,... More

The Waiting Game

No election results in Afghanistan, but plenty of stories

By Greg Marx   Aug 26, 2009 at 09:06 AM

After a fair bit of media buildup, the presidential election in Afghanistan passed fairly quietly last week. Violence was lower... More

LAT’s Lazarus Alone Questions BofA Arbitration Move

The rest of the press missed a big piece of the story

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 25, 2009 at 03:22 PM

The best personal-finance journalism isn't the kind where pundit X tells you why you shouldn't buy product Y or continuously... More

Photo Quiz: Guess the Topic of This MSNBC Segment

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 25, 2009 at 03:09 PM

What is this? What was MSNBC reporting on here? Yes. This is an image of MSNBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman (playing... More

Was a Public Plan Ever Really in the Cards?

Did Sebelius speak the truth?

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 25, 2009 at 01:48 PM

The media should have seen it coming. Last week, on CNN, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said a... More

And Maureen Dowd’s Webinar Will Be On?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 25, 2009 at 01:40 PM

Per Nieman Lab: School’s in session at The New York Times this fall, and the professors include some big bylines... More

Back to School, for Some Reason

Does journalism school still make sense these days?

By The Editors   Aug 25, 2009 at 01:35 PM

It’s late August and, among other things, that means back-to-school--including here at the Columbia Graduae School of Journalism, where the... More

Some Rationality on Medical Rationing

Times takes on health care fears again

By Greg Marx   Aug 25, 2009 at 01:22 PM

Last Friday, The New York Times fronted a feature by Kevin Sack about seniors down south who are skeptical about... More

NYT Profiles Man Who Uses Indoor Voice at Health Care Town Hall

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 25, 2009 at 12:33 PM

Today, a (non-TV) news outlet profiles a "calm," "respectful questioner" from a health care town hall. (Not that yelling and... More

Bloomberg Wins Its Lawsuit Against the Federal Reserve

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 25, 2009 at 10:27 AM

Score one for Bloomberg in its lawsuit seeking to force the federal government to disclose who it's bailing out with... More

“Template For Future Newspaper” on Russia’s “Extremism List”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 25, 2009 at 10:03 AM

From the Moscow Times (via Passport blog): Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Winnie the Pooh share a dubious honor: Anyone... More

The NYT’s Too-Polite Headlines

By Greg Marx   Aug 25, 2009 at 09:39 AM

What’s up with the milquetoast headline writers at The New York Times? Two weeks ago, when reporters Jim Rutenberg and... More

Drowning in the Days

New Post feature tracks Obama’s every move

By Greg Marx   Aug 25, 2009 at 09:30 AM

The political junkie’s pastime of obsessively following Barack Obama’s movements took a more quantitative turn this week, as The Washington... More

Stenography Machines

Attention, Mr. Perlstein: there’s nothing new about ‘he said/she said’

By Jordan Michael Smith   Aug 25, 2009 at 08:00 AM

In a much-discussed Washington Post essay last week--“In America, Crazy is a Preexisting Condition”--the liberal historian Rick Perlstein argued that... More

If They Can’t Prove It, We Shouldn’t Say It

Stenography does not count as reporting

By Greg Marx   Aug 24, 2009 at 03:53 PM

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz has an interesting, if dispiriting, column out today in which he acknowledges some sobering... More

In Which “Glamping” Becomes a Thing

By Megan Garber   Aug 24, 2009 at 03:44 PM

Warning: the following is not from The Onion. The following is from The Wall Street Journal, and from the mind... More

Transparency Interview: Amrit Singh

An ACLU attorney explains how their FOIA suit helped net the CIA’s torture report

By Clint Hendler   Aug 24, 2009 at 03:41 PM

In May, shortly after the American Civil Liberties Union’s longstanding Freedom of Information lawsuit seeking documents illuminating the United States’s... More

Double Entendre

When one word has opposite meanings

By Merrill Perlman   Aug 24, 2009 at 03:16 PM

San Francisco commuters were relieved recently when a commuter rail strike was averted. But for some time, stories about the... More

WSJ Keeps Goldman in the Spotlight

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 24, 2009 at 02:30 PM

The Wall Street Journal has a great scoop on A1 today reporting on a heretofore-unknown practice at Goldman Sachs called... More

Hoyt: NYT Must Laugh With (Not At) Readers

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 24, 2009 at 01:53 PM

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt hears readers' complaints (including "fat hatred" and "class bias") stemming from that bitingly... More

Contest: Non-Newsiest News From Obama’s Vineyard Vacation

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 24, 2009 at 01:06 PM

The president goes on vacation; the press goes with him (some, literally). And so "news" will be filed. See a... More

Forbes on ExxonMobil: “Green Company of the Year”

Really?

By Curtis Brainard   Aug 24, 2009 at 12:57 PM

What an eye-grabber! “ExxonMobil: Green Company of Year.” I mean, who woulda thunk it? Too bad the provocative headline of... More

Couric on Cankles

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 24, 2009 at 12:17 PM

In Katie Couric's "Notebook" today (which I was tricked into reading via a Twitter promo-link posted by Couric or Couric... More

Embeds: The Good, The Bad, and The Accurate

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 24, 2009 at 11:22 AM

From Charlie Reed of Stars and Stripes, reporters embedding with U.S. forces in Afghanistan are subject to a background profile... More

Who Will Be at the Table? Part XIV

Those clever drug companies

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 24, 2009 at 10:11 AM

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

Three Faces of Greeley

How the local, regional, and national press covered a bank failure

By Elinore Longobardi   Aug 24, 2009 at 09:43 AM

What do you know about New Frontier Bank? We can pretty confidently say, that depends on where you live. If... More

More Details on Blackwater’s Role

By Greg Marx   Aug 21, 2009 at 07:47 PM

Should’ve flagged this much earlier: James Risen and Mark Mazzetti’s front-page story in today’s New York Times, chock-full of juicy... More

Richard Florida’s “Stimulus Map”

By Greg Marx   Aug 21, 2009 at 04:46 PM

Atlantic correspondent Richard Florida put up a post yesterday, drawing on data collected and initially mapped by ProPublica, that purports... More

“Yo Soy un Ejemplo Vivo”

A persecuted Mexican reporter fights for asylum in the U.S.

By Marissa Colón-Margolies   Aug 21, 2009 at 02:14 PM

Emilio Gutiérrez Soto was processed like many others who cross the U.S./Mexico border seeking refuge. He was brought under the... More

Please, Don’t Retweet This

Afghanistan’s election shows us the weakness (and strength) of Twitter

By Joshua Foust   Aug 21, 2009 at 02:11 PM

On Thursday, August 20, Afghanistan had its second-ever presidential election. It’s a big deal for several reasons, not least of... More

Matthews on Colbert: An Explosion of Truthiness

By Megan Garber   Aug 21, 2009 at 01:27 PM

Without further comment, because "Matthews on Colbert" pretty much says it all. Happy Friday, everyone. The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs... More

Old News

Times piece fails to make sense of seniors’ health reform fears

By Greg Marx   Aug 21, 2009 at 01:06 PM

Robert Pear’s article in today’s New York Times appears under an intriguing, if typically Times-ian, headline: “A Basis Is Seen... More

Duck Feeding: The Key to Better Health Care

By Greg Marx   Aug 21, 2009 at 12:44 PM

The New York Times’s Kevin Sack has a front-page story today on skittishness over health care reform among senior citizens... More

WSJ v. NYT: Securitization Smackdown

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 21, 2009 at 11:33 AM

If you picked up both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times this morning, your head may be... More

Saluting The Sun

The British tabloid offers the world’s most amusing corrections

By Craig Silverman   Aug 21, 2009 at 10:42 AM

Very few newspapers or other media outlets provide me with better material for my errors and corrections Web site than... More

Good for him.

By Clint Hendler   Aug 21, 2009 at 09:31 AM

I'll admit that my initial reaction to the news that one-time New York Times fiction writer Jayson Blair had launched... More

Final Blow to a 60 Minutes story

By Dean Starkman   Aug 21, 2009 at 09:25 AM

As Dealbook reports, a New Jersey judge threw out a lawsuit filed by Canadian drugmaker Biovail Corp. against a hedge... More

Getting Away from “Off the Record”

The Sunshine Initiative’s letter is a good first step

By Greg Marx   Aug 21, 2009 at 09:00 AM

Earlier this week, a coalition of news organizations led by the Sunshine in Government Initiative sent a letter to hundreds... More

The Chasm Between the Value of Print and Web Readers

A person buying the paper brings twenty times the revenue of an online reader

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 21, 2009 at 07:45 AM

After posting the unhappy news that newspaper ads are at 1965 levels, I thought it might be interesting to take... More

Diving Deep into Blackwater

Press pushes ahead on the CIA assassination story

By Greg Marx   Aug 20, 2009 at 12:21 PM

So it turns out there was more to that story about the secret CIA assassination program that made waves five... More

Jayson Blair, Life Coach

By Megan Garber   Aug 20, 2009 at 12:19 PM

What happens to journalists after they resign in disgrace from their journalism jobs? Where do they go, and what do... More

Remembering Don Hewitt

The 60 Minutes creator invented TV news as we know it

By Betsy West   Aug 20, 2009 at 11:07 AM

“Tell me a story, kid.” --Don Hewitt I was Don Hewitt’s disciple from afar for twenty-five years. Let’s face it,... More

Filkins: “Afghan Girls Live Their Lives in Reverse”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 20, 2009 at 10:29 AM

From the New York Times Magazine "special issue" I mentioned below, a compelling piece by Dexter Filkins, "A School Bus... More

WSJ Weighs in on the Seattle Mayoral Race

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 20, 2009 at 10:08 AM

For the second time in three days, The Wall Street Journal gives prominent play to the Seattle mayoral primary*. To... More

Newspaper Industry Ad Revenue at 1965 Levels

Inflation-adjusted numbers show papers are even worse off than you think

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 19, 2009 at 04:40 PM

Martin Peers had a smart Heard on the Street in yesterday's Wall Street Journal on the critical question of how... More

You Know It’s Late August When…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 19, 2009 at 04:37 PM

This Sunday's New York Times Magazine, a "special issue:" Saving The World's Women Actually, I've been looking forward to reading... More

Lessons from the Birmingham Eccentric

How one community is saving its newspaper

By Diana Dellamere   Aug 19, 2009 at 03:44 PM

A little blitz of good press for local news hit the blogs not so long ago: the Birmingham Eccentric, a... More

Can We Hear From David Brooks on Michelle’s Shorts?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 19, 2009 at 01:57 PM

Knowing that today is a Maureen Dowd Day in the New York Times, I was hoping to learn What David... More

Asphalt Jungle

A fresh look at a monumental smackdown over urban renewal

By Elinore Longobardi   Aug 19, 2009 at 01:07 PM

Wrestling With Moses: How Jane Jacobs Took on New York’s Master Builder and Transformed the American City | By Anthony... More

Conflict is Content; Consensus Isn’t

When reporting on the public option, the press takes its cues from political actors

By Greg Marx   Aug 19, 2009 at 12:47 PM

Two months ago, the idea that a news cycle would be dominated by the distinction between a “public option” and... More

In Afghanistan: “We Are Going To Continue With Our Normal Reporting”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 19, 2009 at 11:00 AM

The AP on the Afghan Foreign Ministry's recent "demand" ("request?") that Afghan journalists "avoid 'broadcasting any incidence of violence' between... More

The Limits of the ‘It’s Obama’s Fault’ Narrative

Bush didn’t steamroll Congress, either

By Greg Marx   Aug 19, 2009 at 10:34 AM

Kevin Drum had an interesting post yesterday building off the observation that at the recently-concluded Netroots Nation, enthusiasm was markedly... More

The Post’s Misleading Deflation Number

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 19, 2009 at 10:31 AM

I hate it when I see numbers reported without necessary context. A Washington Post story today on the economy reports... More

Please Be Kidding This Time, Daily Show

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 19, 2009 at 09:50 AM

I have seen MSNBC's cringe-making segment called No Way! during which Donny Deutsch and Tamron Hall discuss wacky, way-out news... More

Novak’s “Empty Chair Approach”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 18, 2009 at 04:45 PM

When I hear "Robert Novak" and "empty chair," I think of that moment in 2005 when Novak cursed on-air on... More

Now We’re Blaming Lending Laws?

The WSJ tries—and fails—to tie strict laws to slow growth

By Dean Starkman   Aug 18, 2009 at 04:30 PM

The WSJ had an interesting story on how Vermont's strict lending laws have kept foreclosures down. But it goes off... More

Vacation Mode

What, if any, media sources do you still check while on vacation?

By The Editors   Aug 18, 2009 at 02:52 PM

With half the world and all of Washington D.C. on vacation--including the commander-in-chief, who will be summering on Martha’s Vineyard... More

WaPo Delivers a Much-Needed “Wait a Second”

The economy faces a long, hard path to any real recovery

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 18, 2009 at 02:13 PM

With all the positive talk about the economy in the press over the last couple of months, you'd think happy... More

Colleagues Remember Robert Novak

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 18, 2009 at 02:09 PM

Lynn Sweet on her Chicago Sun Times colleague (headline: "Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times Columnist, 'Prince of Darkness' died Tuesday"): Chicago... More

Just In: “What Will Happen With Michael Jackson’s Body”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 18, 2009 at 12:55 PM

CNN had the news first, at 11:17 AM: This just in to us here in the newsroom. Michael Jackson hasn't... More

CJR Rewind: Novak on Novak

A review of Robert Novak’s autobiography

By Anthony Marro   Aug 18, 2009 at 12:38 PM

Longtime D.C. political columnist Robert Novak died today at age seventy-eight. This review of Novak's autobiography originally ran in the... More

The Meta-War in Georgia, One Year On

The war over the war in Georgia is far from over

By Joshua Foust   Aug 18, 2009 at 12:11 PM

It’s been a year or so since Russia invaded its tiny southern neighbor, Georgia. The details of why and how... More

Kostric On “Irresponsible Reporting,” “Hoplophobia”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 18, 2009 at 11:23 AM

From Part 1 of The Faster Times's Q&A with William Kostric, a.k.a, The Man Who Brought The Loaded Gun to... More

WSJ Back to the Backdating Scandal

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 18, 2009 at 09:52 AM

The Wall Street Journal, which broke the massive options-backdating scandal three years ago in one of the great enterprise stories... More

The Future of All The News That’s Fit to Print…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 18, 2009 at 09:48 AM

...will be crowdsourced? Shaped by an ongoing, online marketing survey? The New York Times Insight Lab wants you -- Times... More

Excluded Voices

An interview with British health official Andrew Dillon

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 18, 2009 at 09:01 AM

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

Health Care and Wikipedia

Wondering how to cover health care debates? Get thee to a wiki.

By Megan Garber   Aug 18, 2009 at 08:51 AM

Here are some things the media are generally incapable of resisting: - conflict - drama - innuendo - Sarah Palin... More

“I Want To Know What You Think…”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 18, 2009 at 08:26 AM

Deep thoughts from last night's Daily Show on those unavoidable cable news polls -- Are health care town halls making... More

Off the Wrack

The difference between “rack” and “wrack” is a wreck

By Merrill Perlman   Aug 17, 2009 at 05:18 PM

One news article said: “Compensation is coming under greater scrutiny since the world’s biggest financial companies wracked up almost $1.6... More

Match the Ombud to the Offense!

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 17, 2009 at 04:15 PM

Three newspaper ombuds. Three recent columns. Below are excerpts from the work of the following reader representatives: Siobhan Butterworth of... More

Blowing Up a Feeble Defense of Ben Stein

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 17, 2009 at 02:12 PM

You'll recall Ben Stein's ethical lapse last month that got him fired from his plum Sunday business column in The... More

Blogging in the Middle East: License to Differ

Bloggers stand out when professional journalists don’t stand up

By Robert Mahoney   Aug 17, 2009 at 01:58 PM

Lawrence Pintak and Yosri Fouda's assertion that, by defending online writers in the Middle East, Western press freedom groups are... More

Blogging in the Middle East: Not Necessarily Journalistic

The new threat to Middle East journalism: made in the USA

By Lawrence Pintak and Yosri Fouda   Aug 17, 2009 at 01:58 PM

CAIRO – What is a journalist? In Western media circles these days, the boundaries are blurring between online newspapers like... More

Not Since Tucker Carlson…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 17, 2009 at 11:52 AM

... doffed his bow tie to compete* on ABC's Dancing With The Stars in 2006 (only to be declared "an... More

“Unemployed Copy Editors” to the Rescue?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 17, 2009 at 11:37 AM

On MSNBC this morning, I caught a bit of a discussion between Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough and guest Pete... More

Q & A: The Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill

The UK paper’s Washington bureau chief on politics, transparency, and the journalistic power of soccer

By Greg Marx   Aug 17, 2009 at 10:11 AM

One of the interesting developments stemming from the growth of Web news and the splintering of traditional audiences has been... More

The Economy Today: Polling the Stimulus

A roundup of national and regional economic headlines

By Greg Marx   Aug 17, 2009 at 10:09 AM

As signs of economic improvement overseas continue to crop up—most recently, according to The New York Times, in Japan—The Washington... More

The NYT Looks at the FT’s Paywall

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 17, 2009 at 10:08 AM

The New York Times this morning posts a not-very-good look at the paywall strategy of the Financial Times's Web site.... More

Who Could “Spring For” Clinton’s Africa Trip

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 17, 2009 at 09:44 AM

The New York Times' East Africa bureau chief, Jeffrey Gettleman, joined the traveling press accompanying Sec. of State Clinton around... More

Reality Check for the White House

Axelrod’s e-mail raises more questions

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 17, 2009 at 08:30 AM

Last Thursday, in an attempt to counter the health reform misinformation being propagated by President Obama’s ideological opponents, presidential adviser... More

We Heart the Vineyard

By Daniel Luzer   Aug 14, 2009 at 05:51 PM

So apparently Barack Obama is going to spend a week at the end of this month in Martha's Vineyard. This... More

Old Job, New Trick

By Megan Garber   Aug 14, 2009 at 05:17 PM

Behold, a new format for accountability journalism. More

Watching the Elizabeth Warren Coverage

Still not good enough

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 14, 2009 at 03:54 PM

I've beefed several times about the press giving Elizabeth Warren and her Congressional Oversight Panel short shrift. So I wanted... More

Overemphasizing Obama

The limits of what health care can tell us about the president

By Greg Marx   Aug 14, 2009 at 01:22 PM

Dan Froomkin’s first item at The Huffington Post, which appeared on Monday, has drawn some mild criticism from an unlikely... More

Fallows: “I Was Wrong.”

By Megan Garber   Aug 14, 2009 at 11:47 AM

The masterful James Fallows--an expert on McCaugheyology by virtue of researching her influence on the Clinton health care plan for... More

NYT Flashes Confusion in HFT Reporting

How much high-frequency trading involves “peeking”?

By Nina Mehta   Aug 14, 2009 at 11:42 AM

For a brief moment last week, “flash orders” ranked #2 on Google Trends, just below “cash for clunkers car list”... More

Don’t (Mis)quote Me

The demise of an error that refused to die

By Craig Silverman   Aug 14, 2009 at 11:31 AM

It’s the kind of quote that makes readers sit up and pay attention. In 2002, Moshe Yaalon, then the chief... More

Naming and Shaming, Daily News Edition

By Megan Garber   Aug 14, 2009 at 11:25 AM

Per Greg's post--and per his story on the profound challenges of correcting misinformation, which you should read right away--here's one... More

Naming and Shaming at the NYT

By Greg Marx   Aug 14, 2009 at 10:46 AM

Brendan Nyhan, whose work on the difficulty of correcting political misinformation formed the basis of my story on that subject,... More

The Economy Today: An Upturn Overseas

Economic news from Arizona, Florida, North Dakota, and elsewhere

By Greg Marx   Aug 14, 2009 at 10:10 AM

The lead economic story in the American press today is about Europe. As The Washington Post reports, new data from... More

Sweet or Sour?

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 14, 2009 at 09:59 AM

Bloomberg has an investing story today that doesn't tell readers a critical piece of information about the motives of its... More

Twitter Must Die…Long Live Twitter

By Megan Garber   Aug 14, 2009 at 09:48 AM

"To Live, Twitter Must Die"? Slate's Farhad Manjoo makes the case. More

In Which the Word “False” Is Used Five Times

By Megan Garber   Aug 14, 2009 at 09:06 AM

If someone were to create a media criticism version of Family Feud*--and if, during an episode of that show, one... More

The Wrong Stuff

What we don’t know about how to correct misinformation

By Greg Marx   Aug 14, 2009 at 08:20 AM

Pushing back against political misinformation has lately become a growth industry. The Obama administration is trying to counter false claims... More

“He Was Swimming in a Butterscotch River while Angels Blew Cream-puff Kisses at His Feet”

By Megan Garber   Aug 14, 2009 at 08:15 AM

Yet again, The Daily Show's skewering of the media coverage of the health care debate is both brilliant and spot-on:... More

Weidner: Wall Street, Still Wayward

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 13, 2009 at 05:29 PM

David Weidner has a great column today on WSJ.com, but not in the newspaper apparently. Too bad. It deserves wider... More

Frum: “The guns are coming out. The risks are real.”

By Megan Garber   Aug 13, 2009 at 12:37 PM

This has been, in the health care debate, The Week of the Gun. David Frum shoots back: It's not enough... More

On the Merits of Coke Classic

By Megan Garber   Aug 13, 2009 at 12:20 PM

Robert Wright, writing over at The Daily Dish, declares his appreciation for the latimes.com redesign: I like the new online... More

Straight Talk, Part I

The end-of-life myth and the real long-term care stories to be told

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 13, 2009 at 12:08 PM

With charges, countercharges, information, disinformation, flat-out lies, and half truths being disseminated on all sides of the health reform debates,... More

Newsweek and Rove

By Greg Marx   Aug 13, 2009 at 11:31 AM

Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff doesn’t pull any punches in his story on Karl Rove’s role in the 2006 firing of numerous... More

Could You Be (Are You Being) “Coerced” Into Reading Time?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 13, 2009 at 10:47 AM

In response to (sigh, must we? really? apparently so) Sarah Palin's latest Facebook post on "death panels," (particularly the part... More

The Economy Today: A More Upbeat Outlook from the Fed

A roundup of national and regional economic headlines

By Greg Marx   Aug 13, 2009 at 10:28 AM

There’s been a lot of chatter lately about the recession being over or nearly so, and now the Federal Reserve... More

“We Have a [CNBC] Request For…Lots of Anger”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 13, 2009 at 10:08 AM

In case you haven't seen this, CNBC apparently spelled out/sought out what other cable channels have been merely courting for... More

Q & A: The New York Times’s Damon Winter

The Pulitzer-winning photographer on covering contentious town halls

By Alexandra Fenwick   Aug 13, 2009 at 09:05 AM

Splashed across the front page of yesterday’s New York Times was a four-column photo of a man shouting at Sen.... More

If Congress Can’t Fend off the Classic-Car Lobby…

Who can it fend off? The LAT on a Cash for Clunkers loophole

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 13, 2009 at 08:00 AM

The Los Angeles Times has an interesting—if a bit late—piece of reporting on the Cash for Clunkers program, which has... More

Investor’s Business Daily Short-Arms Correction

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 12, 2009 at 06:24 PM

Investor's Business Daily corrected an embarrassing boo-boo in an editorial and in the process made another huge error. In an... More

March of the Politicians

Journal calls out Congress’s climate-change junket Down Under

By Curtis Brainard   Aug 12, 2009 at 04:35 PM

On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal fronted an article about a trip that ten members of Congress took last year... More

Town Hall Highlight Reel Star Explains Herself on Hannity

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 12, 2009 at 04:11 PM

Here is Katy Abram explaining to Fox News's Sean Hannity last night how she was transformed from an unthinking Bill... More

“Now Don’t You Let the Government Get a Hold of My Medicare”

…and other absurdities of fact-free town halls

By Megan Garber   Aug 12, 2009 at 04:02 PM

You could actually pinpoint the moment, yesterday, at which the town hall Claire McCaskill held in Hillsboro, Missouri descended into... More

NYT Puts Fox Business Spin in Context

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 12, 2009 at 02:49 PM

This one's a small thing, but one that too many journalists don't do—probably because we're stereotypically bad at math. Brian... More

The Limits of “The Long View”

Times reaches too far to explain restraint of Iraqi Shiites

By Greg Marx   Aug 12, 2009 at 02:28 PM

The strength of Rod Nordland’s lead story in today’s New York Times about the current state of the sectarian divide... More

Choose Your Own Interviewer on 60 Minutes?

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 12, 2009 at 02:21 PM

An online commenter helps Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik distill his argument that having James Brown (a CBS Sports... More

Now You Can Impulse-Purchase The Economist…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 12, 2009 at 12:38 PM

... and have it in your hands the next day! Via The Guardian: The Economist has launched a single copy... More

“Things Fall Apart; Balthazar Is on Hold”

By Megan Garber   Aug 12, 2009 at 12:13 PM

In response to the Observer's tale of Condé's woes, Alex Balk (now of The Awl) has penned "The McKinsey Summing"--in... More

Clinton’s “Nothing Job”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 12, 2009 at 11:05 AM

From today's New York Post: HILL HATH A FURY OVER NOTHING JOB While Bill Cavorts in Vegas Secretary of State... More

The Economy Today: Schools and the Stimulus

A roundup of national and regional economic headlines

By Greg Marx   Aug 12, 2009 at 10:16 AM

The economic news of the morning, reported both by the Associated Press and Bloomberg, is that the U.S. trade deficit... More

“Scores of” Reporters Arriving In Afghanistan; 2 From AP Injured

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 12, 2009 at 10:09 AM

While "casualties among reporters have been relatively unusual in recent months in Afghanistan," per the New York Times, two AP... More

The WSJ is Crazy for IG’s

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 12, 2009 at 10:09 AM

A rash of stories today in The Wall Street Journal about inspector-general reports on government agencies caught my eye this... More

All About Afghanistan

The press rediscovers the other war in a big way

By Greg Marx   Aug 12, 2009 at 09:05 AM

The Forgotten War has been remembered lately. After being relegated to the back pages for the better part of a... More

Ferguson and Felix: Coates’s Pseudo-Defense

By Megan Garber   Aug 11, 2009 at 10:42 PM

Niall Ferguson met widespread vitriol today for the blunt comparison he made, in his column in the Financial Times, between... More

Bruni’s Last Course

By Megan Garber   Aug 11, 2009 at 09:56 PM

Frank Bruni's final review as restaurant critic for The New York Times has just been published. And he goes out... More

Let Them Eat Cake. But Let That Cake Be Off-Brand.

By Megan Garber   Aug 11, 2009 at 09:52 PM

It is official. The mighty have fallen. More

Matthews to Kostric: “You’re Carrying a Goddamned Gun at a Presidential Event”

By Megan Garber   Aug 11, 2009 at 07:13 PM

On today's episode of Hardball, Chris Matthews grills William Kostric, the fellow (and--perhaps unsurprisingly, given the "Tree of Liberty" sign... More

The Judge Gets It Even If the Press Did Not

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 11, 2009 at 06:26 PM

Last week I was stumped by the weak press coverage (with one notable exception, at The Wall Street Journal) of... More

In Other News from “The Rape Capital of the World”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 11, 2009 at 04:18 PM

Congo. You may know it as, most recently, that place where Sec. of State Hillary Clinton said (when asked "What... More

More on Credit Card Overlimit Policies

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 11, 2009 at 03:56 PM

I wrote earlier today about a Big Money piece on banks' dirty tricks and my own story of falling afoul... More

Who Will Be at the Table? Part XIII

United Healthcare has a mighty big seat

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 11, 2009 at 02:30 PM

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

Bosom Buddies

By Megan Garber   Aug 11, 2009 at 02:08 PM

Yet another way that Hillary Clinton has blazed a trail: German Chancellor Angela Merkel is once again stirring up discussion... More

President: We Won’t “Pull the Plug On Grandma”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 11, 2009 at 01:43 PM

Best? Most eye-catching-est? chyron thus far during the president's health care town hall in Portsmouth, NH, on MSNBC just now:... More

Truth or Consequences

How should the press sort fact from fiction in a rumor-ridden world?

By The Editors   Aug 11, 2009 at 12:28 PM

Mandated abortions. Dying on a wait list. Death panels. The healthcare debate teems with rumors, innuendo, and flat-out lies--ranging from... More

You Had A Bad (Hair) Day, Tabloids Edition

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 11, 2009 at 12:09 PM

Megan noted earlier Andrea Mitchell's take on "what insiders are saying" about Sec. of State Clinton's annoyed "I'm the Secretary... More

The Missing Link — How Not to Launch a Web Site

By Alexandra Fenwick   Aug 11, 2009 at 12:05 PM

File this one under: Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks. Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune officially launched its ChicagoNow.com site, which brings... More

Writing Wrongs

Journals’ call to publish scientific setbacks is an opportunity for journalists

By Sanhita Reddy   Aug 11, 2009 at 11:49 AM

For journalists, some scientific flops are just too good to pass up. Think of the Large Hadron Collider’s failure to... More

No, ABC News, This Isn’t “The Way to Reform Health Care”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 11, 2009 at 10:46 AM

ABC News's constructive contribution to health care reportage this morning on Good Morning America, above the unintentionally(?) maddening chyron "THE... More

Q & A, Part Two: Spencer Ackerman

Part two of CJR’s interview with the national security reporter

By Greg Marx   Aug 11, 2009 at 10:27 AM

This is the second part of a two-part interview with national security reporter Spencer Ackerman. The first part is here.... More

Half Right on Banks

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 11, 2009 at 10:14 AM

This Big Money piece has half its heart in the right place. In one part, it's a tough look at... More

The Economy Today: Productivity Up; Will Jobs Follow?

A roundup of national and regional economic headlines

By Greg Marx   Aug 11, 2009 at 10:07 AM

The Washington Post carries an AP story this morning reporting that productivity rose by an annual rate of more than... More

Andrea Mitchell Attributes Clinton’s “Lost in Translation” Response to a “Bad Hair Day”

By Megan Garber   Aug 11, 2009 at 08:02 AM

So Hillary Clinton displayed a rare show of public anger yesterday during a town hall in Kinshasa, Congo--after a university... More

NYT Details Paulson/Goldman Contacts

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 10, 2009 at 06:02 PM

A tip of The Audit's hat to some old-fashioned muckraking in The New York Times yesterday. Gretchen Morgenson and Don... More

On the Etymology of ‘Dogwasher’

By Greg Marx   Aug 10, 2009 at 04:29 PM

Elizabeth Rubin’s long, detailed New York Times Magazine article about Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, mentions in passing that... More

Gasparino, Arbiter of Cred

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 10, 2009 at 04:20 PM

So CNBC's Charlie Gasparino doesn't like The Audit—or at least Audit Big Chief Starkman. The feeling's not exactly mutual. I... More

Media: You’ve Got Kurtz’s Go-Ahead to Pronounce Palin “Wrong”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 10, 2009 at 04:13 PM

From Howard Kurtz's Q&A today at washingtonpost.com: Portland, Ore.: Is there a point when the media should simply say a... More

Froomkin’s First Huffington Post

By Megan Garber   Aug 10, 2009 at 02:55 PM

Dan Froomkin has officially started his tenure as Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post, and he has now published... More

O’Reilly ❤s Obama, but Not his Parents

By Greg Marx   Aug 10, 2009 at 02:50 PM

Based on the evidence of his peculiar backhanded mash note to the president, published yesterday in Parade, it seems that... More

About Today’s NYT A-1 Trend Story…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 10, 2009 at 02:17 PM

... the one about how "people are increasingly waking up and lunging for cellphones and laptops, sometimes even before swinging... More

You Should See His Classical Music Reviews…

By Justin Peters   Aug 10, 2009 at 02:00 PM

From the Bizarrely Incongruous Ledes Department, here's how Washington Post reporter Steve Yanda leads his recap of yesterday's Nationals/Diamondbacks game... More

Apostrophe Catastrophes

Why is this little mark so troublesome?

By Merrill Perlman   Aug 10, 2009 at 01:19 PM

We’ve all seen it and cringed: The sign advertising “Antique’s for Sale,” the one in the supermarket boasting about it’s... More

Putting the Senate Under Scrutiny

Post piece ably highlights the oddity of the upper house

By Greg Marx   Aug 10, 2009 at 01:00 PM

Over the weekend, Alec MacGillis of The Washington Post had an excellent article on the peculiar nature of the U.S.... More

Health Reform and Obama’s Consumer Protections

Good for consumers, or good for insurers?

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 10, 2009 at 11:38 AM

Last Wednesday, The Washington Post told us the obvious: that “the fight over health-care legislation is saturating the summer airwaves,... More

Hype Machine In High Gear for Journal Jets Story

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 10, 2009 at 11:19 AM

The Wall Street Journal, which we criticized on Friday for hyping and distorting a story on Congress buying jets, goes... More

Q & A: Spencer Ackerman

Part one of a two-part interview with the national security reporter

By Greg Marx   Aug 10, 2009 at 11:15 AM

The rise of Web-based journalism has brought forth an explosion of bright, young, often left-leaning reporters and bloggers. But at... More

Message Received? Advertisers (and Air Force) Turn to Twitter

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 10, 2009 at 10:53 AM

Today in Twitter news: The New York Times Bits blog http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/tweeting-for-dollars/?scp=1&sq=twitter%20izea&st=cse ">reports on one marketing company's introduction of "'Sponsored Tweets,'... More

The Economy Today: Hope for Jobs, After All?

A roundup of national and regional economic headlines

By Greg Marx   Aug 10, 2009 at 10:18 AM

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the possibility of a “jobless recovery,” but The Wall Street Journal’s Justin... More

“The New Equivalent of a Full-Page Newspaper Ad?”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 10, 2009 at 09:48 AM

According to Nieman Lab (citing the following specifics from an LA Times profile of Hollywood gossip blogger Perez Hilton), it... More

Maws, Mouthpiece, and “Mad Bitch”: Innovation Gone Wrong?

Why the “experimentation defense” doesn’t hold up

By Megan Garber   Aug 10, 2009 at 09:00 AM

For purposes of making a point, I'm going to begin in a way that I haven't begun since high school.... More

In the Globe’s Crystal Ball? Paid Content

By Megan Garber   Aug 7, 2009 at 04:36 PM

The management of the Boston Globe has informed its union bosses that the paper will soon begin charging for its... More

It’s Tanking; I’m Teaching…

And other current events in the tumultuous world of science journalism

By Curtis Brainard   Aug 7, 2009 at 04:27 PM

Following the fiftieth fortieth anniversary of the first moon landing two weeks ago, The Observatory ran a short round-up of... More

WSJ’s Misleading Story on the Congress’s Jet Set

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 7, 2009 at 03:22 PM

Let's throw a little water on The Wall Street Journal's page-one scoop that Congress is buying eight private jets for... More

Spitzer Wiretap Info Back Under Wraps

Appeals court overturns Times-litigated ruling allowing access

By Clint Hendler   Aug 7, 2009 at 03:12 PM

Ever since March 10, 2008, when The New York Times broke the story that then-New York governor Eliot Spitzer was... More

Ben Stein’s Money

By Megan Garber   Aug 7, 2009 at 01:33 PM

Call it* "VOOdoo economics." Ben Stein, who has employed the peculiar mixture of his Ivy-educated intellect and verging-on-Godfreyesque voice to... More

Golden Girl

Newsroom stars get more leeway than they deserve

By Craig Silverman   Aug 7, 2009 at 10:44 AM

It has been three weeks since The New York Times published Alessandra Stanley’s now-infamous “appraisal” of Walter Cronkite. The eight... More

The New York Times Finally Cans Ben Stein

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 7, 2009 at 10:17 AM

Gawker scoops that The New York Times has finally given its Sunday Business columnist Ben Stein the ol' heave-ho, after... More

So a Horse Walks into a (Stimulus Progress) Bar…

By Megan Garber   Aug 7, 2009 at 10:10 AM

The Knight Foundation's blog has a great rundown of the early findings of the Stimulus Progress Bar, ProPublica's new tracker... More

The Economy Today: Better than Expected

A roundup of national and regional economic headlines

By Greg Marx   Aug 7, 2009 at 10:05 AM

All the major outlets, including The Washington Post, report the news that “only” 247,000 jobs were lost in July, with... More

The AP Registry: How It Will (and Won’t) Work

By Megan Garber   Aug 7, 2009 at 09:08 AM

Poynter contributor Megan Taylor has a helpful and clear-headed breakdown. More

Globe-al Warming

By Megan Garber   Aug 6, 2009 at 05:43 PM

It's official: the Times Company has put the Boston Globe up for sale. More

Town Hall Tumult

As health reform tensions rise, reporters should keep their cool

By Alexandra Fenwick   Aug 6, 2009 at 03:38 PM

August is typically a sleepy month for political news. Not this year. The raging health care debate has followed vacationing... More

BusinessWeek’s Eye-Opening Banks Story

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 6, 2009 at 03:37 PM

BusinessWeek has a terrific story out on how banks are once more gearing up their magic crap-making machines. The piece... More

It’s Meant to be Seabiscuit, After All

By Greg Marx   Aug 6, 2009 at 02:10 PM

Over at Politico, Michael Calderone has a post up noting that Washington Post TV critic Lisa de Moraes’s piece on... More

Don’t Dismiss Taibbi

What the mainstream press can learn from a Goldman takedown

By Dean Starkman   Aug 6, 2009 at 12:58 PM

Mainstream financial journalism is doing its level, eye-rolling, heavy-sighing best to stuff Matt Taibbi back into the alt-press hole he... More

Vlad’s Vacay: Virile, Viral

By Megan Garber   Aug 6, 2009 at 11:56 AM

It's not just cable. The international media, say what else you will about their commitment to covering the intricacies of... More

Target: Twitter

By Megan Garber   Aug 6, 2009 at 11:50 AM

Unable to access Twitter this morning? This is why. More

Straight Talk Archive

Links to every entry in Trudy Lieberman’s series

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 6, 2009 at 11:20 AM

Below, you will find links to every entry in Trudy Lieberman’s “Straight Talk” series, in descending order. 08/13/09: Straight Talk,... More

Note to Dylan Ratigan: Don’t Piss Off Jonathan Capehart’s Mom

By Megan Garber   Aug 6, 2009 at 10:47 AM

So: Bagelgate. In which an impish producer, during a recent episode of Dylan Ratigan's Morning Meeting, filmed the preternaturally-composed-and-always-immaculately-garbed Jonathan... More

CNN Grade Grubs

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 6, 2009 at 10:24 AM

Still recovering from coverage of Obama's First 100 Days? Brace yourself. It's time for the media to assess Obama's Second... More

The Economy Today: New Jobs Report

Economic headlines from New Jersey, Minnesota, Maryland, and elsewhere

By Greg Marx   Aug 6, 2009 at 10:07 AM

Jobs continue to disappear, but at a slower rate, The Wall Street Journal reports today, relaying data from the payroll... More

Journal: BofA Withheld News of Merrill Losses

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 6, 2009 at 09:54 AM

The Wall Street Journal scoops this morning that Bank of America knew two days before its shareholders voted (we had... More

Not All “Media Workers” Can Do That

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 6, 2009 at 09:17 AM

Time Out New York's Matt Schneiderman suggests five lines of work unemployed journalists might pursue -- publicist, editorial strategist, project... More

That “Stirring Scene” on the Burbank Tarmac…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 5, 2009 at 04:51 PM

...No, not this one, you Beltway rube: This one: Per the New York Times's Adam Nagourney: It was a stirring... More

Not Everything “Happening Now” is News

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 5, 2009 at 04:09 PM

Via County Fair: (Though President Obama might want to keep this in mind when he heads off to the Vineyard... More

Health Reform Lessons from Massachusetts, Part V

Finding affordable health insurance

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 5, 2009 at 02:30 PM

Three years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts enacted a far-reaching health reform law that politicians and the media hailed as... More

Learning the Wrong Lessons from The Daily Show

Once more into the “Mad Bitch” breech

By Greg Marx   Aug 5, 2009 at 02:14 PM

Now that The Washington Post has owned up to pulling Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza’s “Mad Bitch” video, and writers... More

The Puppetry of the President

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 5, 2009 at 02:12 PM

From a particularly animated bit of President Obama's speech in Elkhart, Indiana earlier today (emphasis mine): ...energy and innovation, health... More

Clunkers, the Economy, and the Environment

When it comes to “green,” reporters focus on the pocketbook

By Curtis Brainard   Aug 5, 2009 at 02:12 PM

Since the Department of Transportation announced last Thursday that new-car buyers had bankrupted the “cash for clunkers” rebate initiative in... More

Another FT Whiff on a Numbers Story

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 5, 2009 at 01:46 PM

Two days ago I criticized the Financial Times for a weak story the paper saw fit to plop on page... More

As The Media Circles Speculate (Weekdays, 4pm, Only On…)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 5, 2009 at 12:57 PM

Last week, I linked to Annie Lowrey's observation on Foreign Policy's Passport blog of "How [News] Stories About the Secretary... More

Better Late Than Never, Washington Post Edition

By Greg Marx   Aug 5, 2009 at 12:53 PM

There’s no time stamp to indicate when it went up, but The Washington Post has now officially acknowledged that it... More

In a Flash

When the press is on the ball and regulators regulate, you get results

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 5, 2009 at 10:23 AM

That didn't take long. The SEC is "considering a ban" or going to "push to eliminate" or "move to ban"... More

The Economy Today: Eye on Elkhart

A roundup of national and regional economic headlines

By Greg Marx   Aug 5, 2009 at 10:00 AM

The major news outlets carry advance looks at President Barack Obama’s return trip to Elkhart, Ind., a Midwestern manufacturing town... More

NY Post: “Chicks” Home From North Korea!

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 5, 2009 at 09:43 AM

Current TV journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee are safely back in California after months in a North Korean jail.... More

President Puts Words (And Cupcakes) in Helen Thomas’s Mouth

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 4, 2009 at 04:06 PM

President Obama dropped by the White House briefing room this afternoon to present a plate of cupcakes to Helen Thomas,... More

The Journal’s Geithner-Gets-Mad Scoop

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 4, 2009 at 02:56 PM

The Journal has a juicy scoop this morning on the goings-on inside the Obama administration. It seems Treasury Secretary Tim... More

Health Care Homework for the LA Times

How does the Canadian medical system actually work?

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 4, 2009 at 01:42 PM

By now, it’s pretty clear that the U.S. is not going to adopt health reform that in any way resembles... More

Drunk and Disorderly

Is it OK for papers to “disappear” controversial online content?

By The Editors   Aug 4, 2009 at 01:00 PM

It all started with a really bad idea, a bottle of beer, and a still of our Secretary of State.... More

Bad Morning America

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 4, 2009 at 12:22 PM

Side effects of getting your health news from morning news shows may include dizziness, nausea, anxiety, confusion, false hope... Prof.... More

The Washington Post’s Priorities, Cottonelle Edition

By Megan Garber   Aug 4, 2009 at 11:57 AM

"Mouthpiece Theater"...is back. Yes. And it is, though we didn't think it was possible, bigger and better even more inane... More

The Biz Press’s Incomplete (Print) Efforts on BofA

But a Journal blog gets it right

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 4, 2009 at 10:42 AM

After news broke yesterday that the SEC had reached a $33 million settlement with Bank of America for misleading investors... More

“Mad Bitch,” Twitter Edition

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 4, 2009 at 10:30 AM

If Bill Clinton were on a "private mission" in North Korea meeting with Kim Jong-il to discuss the release of... More

The Economy Today: When Government Programs Go Clunk

Economic headlines from Texas, Nevada, and elsewhere

By Greg Marx   Aug 4, 2009 at 10:14 AM

With the House in recess and GatesGate fading into the rearview mirror, the uncertain future of the federal government’s “Cash... More

“Steve” Agrees With Steve Doocy…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 4, 2009 at 09:33 AM

... who sounds a lot like that woman at that health care town hall. Well, "people think alike:" The Daily... More

Time for a Rousing Game of Spot-the-Irony!

By Megan Garber   Aug 3, 2009 at 11:06 PM

Anyone else see something ironic about this Shapira-themed Atlantic post? More

Post Pulls Milbank’s “Mad Bitch” Video

But further explanations are still in order

By Greg Marx   Aug 3, 2009 at 05:02 PM

When The Washington Post started drawing heat for its latest “Mouthpiece Theater” video, in which Post staffers Dana Milbank and... More

When the Media Partied Like It Was, Well…

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 3, 2009 at 03:59 PM

David Carr's New York Times column today is a useful reminder that the good old days for the media business... More

NYT “Too Pushy” to Land Levi Johnston Interview

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 3, 2009 at 03:58 PM

The Alaska Daily News's's Julia O'Malley recently dined with Levi Johnston (father of Sarah Palin's grandson, Tripp) and Johnston's entourage,... More

McCain: Campaign Press Had “A Totally More Hostile Attitude”…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 3, 2009 at 02:17 PM

.... and that's totally John (not Meghan) McCain's assessment of the 2008 v. 2000 campaign press. Sen. McCain aired a... More

Gawker’s Link Etiquette (or Lack Thereof)

Original stories deserve credit, yes, but also traffic

By Bill Grueskin   Aug 3, 2009 at 02:14 PM

Jim Brady, former Washpost.com editor, summed up a lot in less than 140 characters on Twitter yesterday. Responding to the... More

Depression Shopping

By Daniel Luzer   Aug 3, 2009 at 12:25 PM

As surely everyone knows by now, America is deep in the throes of a recession. But no matter how dire... More

Silent Speaker

How “reticent” came to mean “reluctant”

By Merrill Perlman   Aug 3, 2009 at 12:10 PM

In one recent news article, a buyer said he was “reticent” to participate in the “cash for clunkers” program because... More

The Economy Today: Sorting Out the Stimulus

A roundup of national and regional economic headlines

By Greg Marx   Aug 3, 2009 at 10:13 AM

USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, which have been tracking how the recession and the stimulus affect state and... More

Painfully Unfunny People

By Megan Garber   Aug 3, 2009 at 10:06 AM

For all those proclaiming The Death of the Newspaper Movie Critic...we give you: Rex Reed's artful evisceration of Funny People... More

NYT’s Stanley to “Again Get Special Editing Attention”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Aug 3, 2009 at 09:54 AM

"How Did This Happen?" ("This" being seven eight errors in Alessandra Stanley's July 17th New York Times "appraisal" of Walter... More

The FT Calls This a Front-Page Story?

By Ryan Chittum   Aug 3, 2009 at 09:43 AM

The Financial Times has a poor story this morning on how Goldman Sachs's reputation has been battered by the negative... More

Fairness Doctrine, Anyone?

By Brent Cunningham   Aug 3, 2009 at 09:38 AM

I realize it has been a long, long time since this mindset at our TV networks could reasonably be considered... More

Dude, Where’s My Link?

Ian Shapira, fair use, and “The Death of Journalism (Gawker Edition)”

By Megan Garber   Aug 3, 2009 at 09:00 AM

Ian Shapira's essay in yesterday's Washington Post does what good journalism is meant to do: it puts a human face... More

Detailing the Details

A few bright spots in the media’s health reform coverage

By Trudy Lieberman   Aug 3, 2009 at 08:30 AM

Media coverage of health reform lately has centered on the legislative horse race, as we knew it would. The press... More

“Serendipity” Three

By Megan Garber   Aug 2, 2009 at 07:54 PM

In a March 2006 op-ed in the St. Petersburg Times, William McKeen argued that "in these disposable days of now... More

What the WaPo’s Ombud Wrote about Today*

By Megan Garber   Aug 2, 2009 at 06:37 PM

*hint: It doesn't rhyme with "bad witch"... On Friday, two Washington Post political reporters caused a firestorm when they aired... More

Mouthpiece Theatre off the Air

By Greg Marx   Aug 1, 2009 at 11:57 AM

The Washington Post “Mouthpiece Theater” video in which columnists Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza suggested that Hillary Clinton drink “Mad... More