Mortgage Securitization in the Roaring Twenties

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 29, 2010 at 04:18 PM

Floyd Norris has a fascinating column today on new research that shows, yet again, that there's nothing new under the... More

Comments of the Week

January 25-29, 2010

By The Editors   Jan 29, 2010 at 02:56 PM

Every Friday, we excerpt some of the most insightful, articulate, interesting, and entertaining comments we receive each week. Think we’ve... More

MIA on the IPCC

American press largely ignores latest controversies

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 29, 2010 at 12:26 PM

Almost two weeks ago, the Sunday Times, a British newspaper, “broke” the story that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change... More

Endangered Species

News librarians are a dying breed

By Craig Silverman   Jan 29, 2010 at 11:18 AM

When it comes to the layoffs and buyouts that have hit newspapers over the last couple of years, copy editors... More

Bloomberg’s Reilly Wrecks the Lex on Fed/AIG

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 29, 2010 at 11:07 AM

Bloomberg's David Reilly has a terrific column up today on the New York Federal Reserve and what's wrong with its... More

Historical Precedents for Criticism of the Court

By Greg Marx   Jan 29, 2010 at 10:47 AM

Adam Liptak does great work covering the Supreme Court for The New York Times, and his piece today about Barack... More

The Washington Post Scrubs a Post about the Post

And readers would never know

By Clint Hendler   Jan 29, 2010 at 07:00 AM

On Wednesday, Bill Turque, the Washington Post’s education beat reporter, posted an excellent blog item showing his readers a little... More

Audit Notes: Lex Dreck, Recourse, Extend and Pretend

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 28, 2010 at 09:39 PM

This is a bad sentiment for a journalist to have: Postmortems are revealing. But too much poking is damaging. That's... More

Goldman, Gawker, and the Journal

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 28, 2010 at 06:31 PM

Here's a good example of reporting by old media getting amplified and expanded upon by new media. The Wall Street... More

Running the Numbers on Obama’s State of the Union

By Holly Yeager   Jan 28, 2010 at 02:02 PM

It is nice to know how many times President Obama’s State of the Union address was interrupted by applause (eighty-six,... More

Newsday Paywall Is Barely Affecting Local Traffic

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 28, 2010 at 01:38 PM

The news that Newsday has signed up just thirty-five online subscribers since it put its Web site behind a paywall... More

A Path out of the Health Care Mess?

Still no guidance from the president

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 28, 2010 at 12:14 PM

As readers of Campaign Desk know, we have long questioned the president’s leadership on health care, his number one domestic... More

Bloomberg’s One-Source Stories

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 28, 2010 at 10:51 AM

One of the essentials of writing a news story is to talk to more than one source. That's so basic... More

A Tale of Two Jonathans

Overusing sources and full disclosure—some lessons for the press

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 28, 2010 at 09:21 AM

Jonathan Gruber is an economist from MIT. Jonathan Oberlander is a political scientist from the University of North Carolina. Both... More

Saying Uncle (Sam)

A new study reminds us that media subsidies are centuries-old—and fading

By Megan Garber   Jan 28, 2010 at 09:00 AM

If you want to have some fun at the next future-of-news conference, just shout out, to a roomful of media... More

Assessing Obama

The press and the pundits evaluate the State of the Union

By Greg Marx   Jan 28, 2010 at 08:58 AM

President Obama’s first State of the Union address is in the books, and by the morning after the process of... More

Less Is Not More

Why do newspapers alienate their most loyal readers?

By Lisa Anderson   Jan 28, 2010 at 12:00 AM

When my son’s first college roommate turned out to be from Chicago, I was delighted. His family had long subscribed... More

Audit Notes: Schedule AIG, Leveraging Pensions, Bank Labor v. Capital

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 27, 2010 at 08:23 PM

The mysterious AIG Schedule A, which the Federal Reserve concealed from the public (read our account here of how reporter... More

Outside the Forties

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 27, 2010 at 07:12 PM

We've often complained that the press, much less politicians and the regulators, are still playing three-yards-and-a-cloud-of dust ball between the... More

“We Have the Right Heart. I’d Go Down with You If I Could Brother.”

By Megan Garber   Jan 27, 2010 at 03:51 PM

Support for James O'Keefe, via his Facebook wall: [h/t Dave Weigel] More

Audit D.C. Notes: Take a bow, NYT; LAT on foreign bonds; a WSJ tweak, etc.

By Holly Yeager   Jan 27, 2010 at 03:11 PM

What with the jumble of spending freeze/deficit projection/debt commission/federal budget/State of the Union coverage out there, it wouldn’t surprise us... More

Magical! Revolutionary! Transcendent! Resplendent!

By Megan Garber   Jan 27, 2010 at 02:55 PM

This is the actual description of Apple's iPad, copied verbatim from the actual iPad landing page of the actual Apple... More

Advancing the AIG Story

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 27, 2010 at 02:08 PM

Today is AIG day and there's lots of interesting stuff out there in the press (not to mention Geithner live... More

“It’s so much more intimate than a laptop, and it’s so much more capable than a smartphone.”

By Megan Garber   Jan 27, 2010 at 01:18 PM

Here it is, folks: The Future. Sleek and slick and thus far unicorn/leprechaun/fairydust-free. And they shall call its name...the iPad.... More

Frum: Send O’Keefe to J-School

By Greg Marx   Jan 27, 2010 at 12:35 PM

My roundup of right-wing reaction to the arrest of James O'Keefe and three others missed this from David Frum, bolstering... More

Politics Ain’t Beanbag. But Maybe it’s a Lawn Party?

By Greg Marx   Jan 27, 2010 at 12:14 PM

The New York Times is a great newspaper, and just three weeks ago I was defending its prerogative to maintain... More

Obama’s Book Club

Name one thing you think the president should read

By The Editors   Jan 27, 2010 at 11:19 AM

With The Washington Post’s hagiographic look the other day into President Obama’s reading habits, and into presumably what influences his... More

Advertising for Apple

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 27, 2010 at 10:16 AM

AdAge points out that Apple's new tablet may not exactly part the sea for the press, but it will probably... More

“A Bad Cartoon,” or “A Big Nothing”?

Conservative media reacts to the O’Keefe arrest

By Greg Marx   Jan 27, 2010 at 09:51 AM

The story that had the political media buzzing yesterday was the arrest of James O’Keefe, the conservative, pimp-playing activist who... More

California Watch Launches “Open Newsroom” Project

The investigative outfit gets mobile. And caffeinated.

By Megan Garber   Jan 27, 2010 at 08:00 AM

Think of an “investigative newsroom.” If you’re like most people, you’re probably imagining a sea of desks, the spaces between... More

Audit Notes: The Newsday 35, WSJ Sun, Davos

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 26, 2010 at 07:32 PM

The New York Observer's John Koblin has had a busy day. First he broke a story on Newsday's paywall, which... More

Did the ‘Cornhusker Kickback’ Sink Coakley?

Figuring out why voters made the choice they did is a tricky task

By Greg Marx   Jan 26, 2010 at 04:34 PM

In the ongoing effort to explain Scott Brown’s Senate victory in Massachusetts—a win that has not only thrown health care... More

Freeze, Framed

By Holly Yeager   Jan 26, 2010 at 02:39 PM

Hello, my name is Holly, and I’ll be your fiscal-and-economic-policy-coverage media critic here at The Audit. Would you like freeze... More

Revisiting the SIGTARP AIG Investigation

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 26, 2010 at 12:03 PM

The AIG backdoor-bailout story continues to build, with the TARP special inspector general now re-opening an investigation into the matter.... More

Looking for Haiti’s Lost, Online

How information technology can streamline Web searches

By Chris Csikszentmihályi   Jan 26, 2010 at 10:51 AM

As the dust was settling over Haiti, journalists were boarding planes, a response center at the State Department was manning... More

All They Had to Do Was Ask

By Greg Marx   Jan 26, 2010 at 10:41 AM

Eric Schmitt’s front-page story in today’s New York Times—a report on the details of cables sent in November in which... More

Maybe We Should Call it the Loch Ness Tablet?

By Greg Marx   Jan 26, 2010 at 10:22 AM

I know that rolling your eyes at all the hype around Apple’s latest hotly anticipated device has now become nearly... More

Economist Blogs: Now Bylined*

*Sort of…

By Megan Garber   Jan 26, 2010 at 10:00 AM

Monday afternoon, while perusing posts about libertarian health care plans, the rollout of the Obama administration’s middle-class assistance initiatives, the... More

Audit Notes: Counterparties Relevant, Goldman/AIG, Beck on Stocks

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 26, 2010 at 12:32 AM

We've been asking this question for a few months now: Why did Tim Geithner tell the TARP special inspector general... More

Moscow’s New Rules

Islands of press freedom in a country of control

By Adam Federman   Jan 26, 2010 at 12:00 AM

Late last summer, Ilya Barabanov, a young Russian editor, posted a laconic message on his Web site under the heading,... More

Steve Jobs, Holy Moses

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 25, 2010 at 08:14 PM

Moses has been in the news a lot lately thanks to that more-modern oracle over at 1 Infinite Loop: Steve... More

“The bittersweet chocolate and cab was a match made in heaven.”

By Megan Garber   Jan 25, 2010 at 06:23 PM

Behold, the unholy union of Fawning Political Profile and Fawning Restaurant Review that is Politico Click's dinner with (Napa) California... More

Is the Press an Obstacle to Getting Things Done?

By Greg Marx   Jan 25, 2010 at 06:00 PM

Yes, says the poli-sci blogger Jon Bernstein. In the course of responding to a series of posts by Ezra Klein,... More

Survey: Majority of Journalists Now Depend on Social Media for Story Research

By Megan Garber   Jan 25, 2010 at 05:13 PM

An overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media for their story research, a new survey of... More

‘I Got a Barbie in the Foreground’

By Greg Marx   Jan 25, 2010 at 03:47 PM

The first episode of the fifth season of The Wire, David Simon’s exploration of America’s failing urban institutions, introduces viewers... More

Holly Yeager is CJR’s first Peterson Fellow

By Mike Hoyt   Jan 25, 2010 at 03:34 PM

The Columbia Journalism Review is pleased to announce the appointment of Holly Yeager as its first Peterson Fellow, covering news... More

Sissy Talk

“Pantywaist” has survived for nearly 100 years

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 25, 2010 at 03:15 PM

If you had children in the early part of the twentieth century, you probably clothed the babies in one-piece suits,... More

BREAKING: President HopeNChange Reads Stuff

By Megan Garber   Jan 25, 2010 at 12:43 PM

A lot--and very, very little--may be said about the lengthy examination of Barack Obama's media influences in today's Washington Post.... More

The Press Angle of the Fed’s Backdoor-Bailout Cover-up

Geithner’s New York Fed responded to a FOIA by withholding more information

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 25, 2010 at 12:08 PM

Whatever Tim Geithner's New York Fed was trying to hide in the AIG backdoor bailout was so volatile it was... More

The Devil in the Details, Part V

The disabled still must wait for Medicare

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 25, 2010 at 11:12 AM

Every lobbyist swarming Capitol Hill these days knows that, when it comes to legislation, the devil is always lurking in... More

Post Weighs in with Massachusetts Poll

By Greg Marx   Jan 22, 2010 at 07:15 PM

In the course of arguing that the press shouldn’t be hasty to take messages from Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts,... More

Blowing Up at the Murdoch Journal

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 22, 2010 at 04:44 PM

Barry Ritholtz rips The Wall Street Journal a new one today, saying that "Under Murdoch, the paper has become politicized... More

What’s the Impact of Citizens United?

Some scholars argue the biggest changes may have already happened

By Greg Marx   Jan 22, 2010 at 03:46 PM

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling yesterday in Citizens United v. FEC, overturning the federal ban on corporate spending in elections,... More

Comments of the Week

January 18-22, 2010

By Kimberly Chou   Jan 22, 2010 at 02:00 PM

Every Friday, we excerpt some of the most insightful, articulate, interesting, and entertaining comments we receive each week. Think we’ve... More

Re-examining Massachusetts Health Care

Post-election comments from the MSM miss the boat

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 22, 2010 at 01:06 PM

Wednesday on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, Richard Parker, who lectures at Harvard’s Kennedy School, talked about his son’s hockey coach,... More

Error Prevention Made Easy

Three new applications every journalist should know about

By Craig Silverman   Jan 22, 2010 at 12:26 PM

I was reading about political iPhone apps on MediaStyle.ca, a blog maintained by Canadian communications consultant Ian Capstick, when I... More

What Does Tim Geithner Really Think About the Volcker Rule?

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 22, 2010 at 11:26 AM

The New York Times, in a story about the sudden, somewhat shocking ascendance in the Obama orbit of the long-ignored... More

Is Haiti’s Earthquake a “Game-Changer”?

Probably not in the way that some pundits think

By Henry (Chip) Carey   Jan 22, 2010 at 10:55 AM

In the days after Haiti’s earthquake, several observers have expressed hope that the disaster could, ultimately, be a game-changer for... More

Sentences I Did Not Expect to Read Today

By Greg Marx   Jan 22, 2010 at 09:38 AM

David Brooks, in this morning's Times: "I support the Weak and Feckless Approach." More

Knight Puts Contests in Context (and Vice Versa)

By Megan Garber   Jan 21, 2010 at 04:53 PM

The Knight News Challenge may be one of the most exciting new traditions in journalism...but it can also be one... More

The Enquirer Makes a Bid for a Pulitzer

By Greg Marx   Jan 21, 2010 at 04:24 PM

Well, this is kind of interesting. From Howie Kurtz: The executive editor of the National Enquirer says he plans to... More

Don’t Forget to Tip Your Server…

By Megan Garber   Jan 21, 2010 at 03:49 PM

Facebook gets its own data center in gorgeous Prineville, Oregon. More

Another Read on Health Care Politics

Do voters want better care—but only for themselves?

By Greg Marx   Jan 21, 2010 at 03:31 PM

As the attempt to suss out the meaning of the Massachusetts Senate election continues, Alec MacGillis weighs in today with... More

“I Can’t Take it Anymore”

A former Haiti-based foreign correspondent on a country in ruins

By Jonah Engle   Jan 21, 2010 at 03:03 PM

“Earthquake rocks Port-au-Prince,” read the brief news item. I let out a yell. The first report Tuesday evening mentioned only... More

Character Studies

A new anthology from David Maraniss highlights the human factor

By Steve Weinberg   Jan 21, 2010 at 12:03 PM

Into the Story: A Writer’s Journey Through Life, Politics, Sports and Loss | By David Maraniss | Simon & Schuster... More

Yes, But Are They on Twitter?

By Greg Marx   Jan 21, 2010 at 11:12 AM

The front page of today’s New York Times features an Alissa Rubin piece about how Taliban leaders are responding to... More

The Post Responds to TNR

By Greg Marx   Jan 21, 2010 at 10:42 AM

Today in media world gossip: Donald Graham, chairman of The Washington Post Company, responds to The New Republic’s recent critical... More

Another Take on the Health Care Debate

By Greg Marx   Jan 21, 2010 at 09:57 AM

As the debate over the roots of Democratic woes continues, David Brady, Daniel Kessler, and Douglas Rivers take to the... More

Obama (Finally) Gets Tough on Wall Street

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 21, 2010 at 09:56 AM

In stunning news this morning, President Obama has reversed course and will propose a kind of Glass-Steagall II, as well... More

A Thousand Cuts

As long as the monopoly money rolled in, who noticed?

By Terry McDermott   Jan 21, 2010 at 08:00 AM

Spencer Ackerman, who reports on national security issues for The Washington Independent and blogs about the same—and does both at... More

Audit Notes: A Tax a Reaganite Can Love, Cramer, Mad Max

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 21, 2010 at 12:12 AM

David Stockman, who was in the Reagan cabinet as budget director, comes out swinging for a too-big-to-fail bank tax in... More

Bloomberg Punctures the Fed’s French Excuse

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 20, 2010 at 08:40 PM

Bloomberg advances the AIG/French-banks story today quite a little bit. That's the one where the Fed said it had to... More

Obama Interprets the Election

By Greg Marx   Jan 20, 2010 at 05:15 PM

Earlier this afternoon, I flagged the divergent analyses of the Massachusetts Senate election offered by John Judis and John Sides.... More

Reporters Doubling as Docs in Haiti

Dual roles raise concerns about journalistic ethics

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 20, 2010 at 05:15 PM

Prominent television journalists who are also certified doctors have been treating injured patients amidst the recovery and relief efforts in... More

Disastrous Comparisons

Haiti is not New Orleans

By Alexandra Fenwick   Jan 20, 2010 at 03:10 PM

Last week, as the story about the earthquake in Haiti became the story of the relief effort in Haiti, opinion... More

More on the Meaning of Mass.

By Greg Marx   Jan 20, 2010 at 01:25 PM

My Campaign Desk column today about why we shouldn’t lend too much credence to those analysis pieces about the meaning... More

Mixed Messages in Massachusetts

Still looking for meaning in the Brown-Coakley results

By Greg Marx   Jan 20, 2010 at 12:25 PM

Now that the counting’s over in Massachusetts and the crying’s begun for Democrats, with a conservative Republican poised to take... More

The Truth Is No Defense

How an op-ed in a Slovenian daily left one American facing a prison sentence

By James Smoot   Jan 20, 2010 at 12:12 PM

I was five minutes from my house in Ljubljana, Slovenia when my neighbor called. The police were there looking for... More

The NYT Will Charge Online

That’s a good thing

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 20, 2010 at 11:01 AM

It's official. The New York Times says it will stop giving away its expensive-to-produce paper online and institute a metered... More

Steve Lovelady, Editor

Campaign Desk’s founding editor dies at sixty-six

By Mike Hoyt   Jan 20, 2010 at 10:47 AM

Steve Lovelady, who helped launch the Columbia Journalism Review into the digital realm after a stellar career as a serious... More

Obama the Essayist

The president’s Newsweek piece didn’t deliver much for readers

By Greg Marx   Jan 20, 2010 at 09:49 AM

In a brief note at the end of his column last Friday, Slate’s Jack Shafer asked why Barack Obama would... More

Audit Notes: FCIC’s Missing Media, What Crisis?, L’Affaire AIG

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 19, 2010 at 06:43 PM

What did we miss as press coverage of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission fizzled last week? On Friday, we pointed... More

Haiti in the Headlines

What’s your take on the coverage of the Haitian earthquake?

By The Editors   Jan 19, 2010 at 04:28 PM

Since a devastating earthquake rocked Haiti a week ago, the impoverished island nation has been front-page news around the world.... More

Pre-game Prognostications

The press looks for meaning in the Massachusetts Senate race

By Greg Marx   Jan 19, 2010 at 01:34 PM

There are few things political journalists enjoy more than playing up a big event, pontificating on its meaning, and speculating... More

Citi Not Quite As Awful As Last Year, Says Dow Jones

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 19, 2010 at 01:00 PM

Here's a strange Wall Street Journal headline (of a Dow Jones Newswires story): "Citi Loss Narrows." Yeah—to $7.6 billion. Is... More

Sizing It Up

‘Downsize’ upgrades itself

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 19, 2010 at 12:44 PM

In a letter to CJR, Jeffrey Kaye, a freelance journalist and author, objected to some usages in recent articles about... More

Repairing Haitian Radio

Internews sends team of specialists, technicians to restore local broadcasting

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 19, 2010 at 11:29 AM

With radio and television news outlets crippled by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti last week, Internews, an international media... More

The WSJ on Another Junk-Debt Boom

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 19, 2010 at 11:09 AM

The bubble is back. If you hadn't already figured that out, that's the lesson from The Wall Street Journal's excellent... More

Most Confusing Headline Of The Week

By Alexandra Fenwick   Jan 19, 2010 at 08:58 AM

In an effort to cram in all the sordid details of a terrible crime, The Daily News gives us this... More

Health Care and the Massachusetts Senate Race

What’s bothering folks up there, anyway?

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 19, 2010 at 08:46 AM

When President Obama came to Massachusetts to rally the troops for Martha Coakley Sunday, he had little to say about... More

Time the Conquerer

Three newspapers in thirty-nine minutes. Uh, oh.

By Jill Drew   Jan 19, 2010 at 08:00 AM

I sat through plenty of official focus groups in my years as a Washington Post assistant managing editor, watching people... More

Audit Notes: Ignoring State Regs, Busy Bhatia, Volcker Vacuum

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 15, 2010 at 06:38 PM

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission talked to state regulators—the only ones with credibility on the predatory-lending issue and you might... More

A WSJ Story Shows TBTF Effects on the Market

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 15, 2010 at 04:18 PM

The Wall Street Journal is excellent today to spotlight a sudden jump in ARM interest rates on New Year's Eve... More

Who Was at the Table?

A clever lobbying tactic from the insurers

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 15, 2010 at 03:47 PM

No one can ever call the insurance lobby stupid. Last fall a pro-reform advocate was positively gleeful when she told... More

‘The Most Inaccessible Story I Have Ever Covered’

By Greg Marx   Jan 15, 2010 at 01:13 PM

At The Huffington Post, Danny Shea writes up an interview with Bill Hemmer, who arrived in Port-au-Prince yesterday to cover... More

Comments of the Week

January 11-15, 2010

By The Editors   Jan 15, 2010 at 11:32 AM

Every Friday, we excerpt some of the most insightful, articulate, interesting, and entertaining comments we receive each week. Think we’ve... More

Standard of Living

Guillaume Chenevière wants to standardize our approach to quality control

By Craig Silverman   Jan 15, 2010 at 11:19 AM

The news executive patiently listened to Guillaume Chenevière’s points, and then explained that, the way he saw it, he had... More

Regulating Health Care Archive

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

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 15, 2010 at 10:48 AM

Below, you will find links to every entry in Trudy Lieberman’s “Regulating Health Care” series, in descending order. 03/08/10: Regulating... More

More From the Journal on Dodd and Reform

By Greg Marx   Jan 15, 2010 at 10:47 AM

Last week, as various press outlets tried to gauge the meaning of Chris Dodd’s upcoming retirement for financial regulatory reform,... More

Steven Pearlstein: Then and Now

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 15, 2010 at 10:11 AM

What a difference a year makes! Here's the Washington Post's Steven Pearlstein last February: These guys won’t be happy until... More

One-Way, Wrong Way

The underwear bomber didn’t actually buy a one-way ticket

By Greg Marx   Jan 15, 2010 at 08:00 AM

Earlier this week, Justin Elliott had a great piece at TPM Muckraker exploring how the notion that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,... More

Audit Notes: Goldie’s AIG CDS, Smarter Readers, Adversarial Stance

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 14, 2010 at 07:46 PM

James Keller has an interesting post over at RealClearMarkets on the Goldman Sachs/AIG controversy, which he says is "Likely Worse... More

Administration says Open Gov Directive on track

By Clint Hendler   Jan 14, 2010 at 04:23 PM

With about a week to go before their first deadline, the Obama administration is saying that the Open Government Directive,... More

Haiti, on Background

A Haiti expert gives context to the current tragedy

By Henry (Chip) Carey   Jan 14, 2010 at 04:01 PM

I have been to Haiti at least yearly for the past two decades, and have spent months working at the... More

Parsing the Latest Online-Charging Poll

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 14, 2010 at 03:49 PM

There's yet another poll out there reporting the obvious: Most people say they won't pay for something they get for... More

The Undercovered Country

Haiti as journalists have known it

By Sam Eifling   Jan 14, 2010 at 02:59 PM

Just when cable’s mournful drumbeat led us to think we were of one mind on the tragedy of the Haitian... More

BBC Trust to Review Science Coverage

Outlet’s “accuracy and impartiality” to be scrutinized following criticism

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 14, 2010 at 02:25 PM

The BBC Trust—the governing body of the BBC—announced last week that it will review the accuracy and impartiality of the... More

The Haitian Times Heads to Haiti

Brooklyn-based paper ramps up its coverage of the quake

By Alexandra Fenwick   Jan 14, 2010 at 02:06 PM

Last night, as he raced down the Van Wyck Expressway toward Kennedy Airport, en route to Haiti with a team... More

Tragedy’s Thousand Words

By Megan Garber   Jan 14, 2010 at 01:32 PM

The past couple of days have produced prose, describing scenes from Haiti, that has been nauseating and heartbreaking in equal... More

A Tasty Morsel

By Alexandra Fenwick   Jan 14, 2010 at 12:42 PM

Just a week after the New York Times cafeteria was closed down for a day after several employees reported food... More

Regulating Health Care

Insurers and hospitals in Massachusetts snub the regulators

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 14, 2010 at 09:42 AM

The pols and the advocacy groups have told us for months that health reform is supposed to produce tighter regulation... More

Haiti’s Recent History

Was Haiti making gains before the quake hit?

By Greg Marx   Jan 14, 2010 at 09:38 AM

The popular image of Haiti can be summed up pretty succinctly: impoverished, unstable, dangerous. Against that familiar backdrop, Tuesday’s devastating... More

The Hack

The journalistic education of Gabriel García Márquez

By Miles Corwin   Jan 14, 2010 at 08:00 AM

In 1955, eight crew members of a Colombian naval destroyer in the Caribbean were swept overboard by a giant wave.... More

Revisiting the Journal’s TBTF Citi Story

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 14, 2010 at 05:34 AM

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism calls me out for swallowing a Wall Street Journal story showing the Citigroup side in... More

A Distant Echo

What Father Coughlin tells us about Glenn Beck

By Douglas McCollam   Jan 13, 2010 at 07:16 PM

Throughout the initial year of President Obama’s term, there has been much consternation over the administration’s “war” with the conservative... More

Audit Notes: Frontrunning, Walk Away!, Housing (Still) Deteriorating

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 13, 2010 at 06:29 PM

The New York Times reports that Goldman Sachs admitted in an email to clients it has traded ahead of its... More

Early Earthquake Coverage Roundup

News outlets cover the Haitian earthquake without actually being in Haiti

By Alexandra Fenwick   Jan 13, 2010 at 05:12 PM

Tuesday’s earthquake in Haiti poses a vexing question for journalists and readers everywhere: If a disaster happens in an under-reported... More

Indirect Subsidies Are Bailouts, Too

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 13, 2010 at 03:37 PM

Dan Gross at Slate pushes back against the false notion that the banks have paid back all their bailouts—a nasty... More

Free At Last?

An impassioned pitch for press freedoms in the new century

By Eve Burton   Jan 13, 2010 at 03:11 PM

Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century | By Lee C. Bollinger | Oxford University Press,... More

“New” Media Crucial in Aftermath of Haitian Earthquake

Newspapers, television scramble to reach the scene

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 13, 2010 at 12:22 PM

“New” media platforms were critical to delivering early information about damage and relief efforts in the aftermath of a 7.0... More

The Haitian News Vacuum

By Greg Marx   Jan 13, 2010 at 12:04 PM

One of the striking things about the news out of Haiti in the wake of yesterday’s devastating earthquake is that…... More

HuffPost Expands on the Obama Bank-Tax Plan

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 13, 2010 at 10:16 AM

That bank-tax reported yesterday looks like it will be broader and tougher than initially reported. The Huffington Post quotes a... More

Audit Notes: Goner Jobs, Angelides Questions, More AIG

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 12, 2010 at 07:23 PM

The WSJ warns that any recovery in employment is going to be slowed by the fact that many of the... More

Brief Encounters

Short reviews of books about familial discoveries and coverage of Hillary Clinton

By James Boylan   Jan 12, 2010 at 06:53 PM

Enemies of the People: My Family’s Journey to America By Kati Marton Simon & Schuster 272 pages, $26 For Kati... More

“Burned” Book

Did Halperin and Heilemann play fair with Harry Reid?

By The Editors   Jan 12, 2010 at 05:30 PM

The controversy surrounding Harry Reid’s remarks has occupied the nation’s political press since they broke late Friday night. But a... More

Deep Trouble

Halperin and Heilemann’s game-changing attribution

By Clint Hendler   Jan 12, 2010 at 04:09 PM

Is there a single journalistic quirk more likely to cause post-publication tsuris than the varying taxonomies of “off the record,”... More

BizWeek Lures Clicks with Bad Photoshop

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 12, 2010 at 03:35 PM

This Bloomberg BusinessWeek slideshow on the best places to raise your kids for its is unintentionally (I think) funny. How... More

More on Fox News’s Magnificent Money Machine

By Kathy Gilsinan   Jan 12, 2010 at 01:36 PM

Sunday’s New York Times profile of Roger Ailes claims that Fox News “is believed to make more money than CNN,... More

The Angelides Opportunity

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 12, 2010 at 10:15 AM

The Angelides Commission starting tomorrow is a key moment in the financial crisis. If it turns out to be a... More

Lou and Me

‘We work at a newspaper, a real newspaper’

By Don Terry   Jan 12, 2010 at 08:00 AM

Late into another sleepless Chicago night, I drag a blue-blooded widow and a balding curmudgeon under the covers with me,... More

Audit Notes: Dealism, AIG SECrets, Fed Fights Bloomberg

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 12, 2010 at 01:13 AM

The business-press criticism quote of the day goes to The New York Times for this gem from Eduardo Mestre, an... More

Friend or Faux

The sublime fakery of Armando Iannucci

By Richard Gehr   Jan 11, 2010 at 07:30 PM

"Blimey,” tweeted Armando Iannucci on November 20. “Cameron says Thick is his favourite prog, and Health Sec quotes Malcolm in... More

WSJ on Citi’s TBTF Money Pipeline

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 11, 2010 at 07:29 PM

There are a few really interesting things in the the Journal's story today on Citigroup and some of the benefits... More

Banned in Britain

Across the pond, new perils—and possibilities—for press freedom

By Christopher D. Cook   Jan 11, 2010 at 06:24 PM

The documents are ugly and embarrassing. In e-mails riddled with terms like “gasoline slops” and “caustic washing,” officials with Trafigura,... More

Reid Aloud

Reid’s comments weren’t really like Lott’s. Journalists shouldn’t let people pretend that they were

By Greg Marx   Jan 11, 2010 at 05:32 PM

When a political dispute breaks out, should reporters simply “report the controversy,” or instead attempt to referee and resolve it?... More

Stumbling over the Cadillac Plan Tax

Stephanopoulos tries; Romer fumbles

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 11, 2010 at 03:54 PM

If viewers were hungry for a little health care info yesterday from the talk shows, they wouldn’t have learned much... More

BW Focuses on the Temp Economy

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 11, 2010 at 03:51 PM

BusinessWeek's good cover story this week looks at the temping of the American workforce. Wait a second, you say. Haven't... More

“SUPPORT THE JOURNALIST”

Paige Williams reported a story. She financed it herself. She’d love to be paid back.

By Megan Garber   Jan 11, 2010 at 02:48 PM

In 1978, when she was eighteen years old and living, with the rest of the country, through an economic crisis... More

Compound Interest

When you’re not quite a suspect

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 11, 2010 at 01:33 PM

In the wake of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a commercial jet, we were introduced to a new term.... More

In Which the World Makes Just a Little More Sense

By Megan Garber   Jan 11, 2010 at 01:23 PM

Sarah Palin: beamed up to the mothership. More

Flatlining Despite Healthcare Overhaul

CUNY, Univ. of Minnesota suspend health/medical journalism programs

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 11, 2010 at 12:43 PM

With one of the most significant and expensive overhauls of the American health care system about to begin, the City... More

An Odd Angle on Reid’s Troubles

By Greg Marx   Jan 11, 2010 at 12:33 PM

The outdated word that's gotten the Senate major leader in such trouble will be appearing on the 2010 Census form.... More

Times Shares

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 11, 2010 at 10:15 AM

The idea of the day comes from Business Insider's Henry Blodget, who has some smart advice for Sulzbergers: Tap the... More

When Does a News Outlet Become a Press Agent?

Ben Nelson and the Fremont (Nebraska) Tribune

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 11, 2010 at 08:00 AM

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson has been in trouble with his constituents ever since he cast the crucial sixtieth vote to... More

Beyond Transparency

Is more information always a good thing?

By Michael Schudson and Julia Sonnevend   Jan 8, 2010 at 07:34 PM

A picture is worth a thousand words—but to whom? To the people who see it? Or to those who present... More

Audit Links: Jobless Stats, Reuters and SAC, LATe

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 8, 2010 at 06:59 PM

The unemployment numbers came in worse than expected this morning and the Washington Post's Frank Ahrens points out that they're... More

Seeds of Change?

Why we need independent data on genetically modified crops

By Georgina Gustin   Jan 8, 2010 at 06:08 PM

Some time early this year a group called the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications will issue a... More

Hey, Internet! Journalism’s Financial Crisis is Solved!

By Megan Garber   Jan 8, 2010 at 05:46 PM

We'd considered paywalls. We'd considered foundation support. We'd considered government subsidies. The one news-funding strategy we hadn't considered? Spit-roasted pig.... More

Comments of the Week

January 4-8, 2010

By The Editors   Jan 8, 2010 at 04:53 PM

Every Friday, we excerpt some of the most insightful, articulate, interesting, and entertaining comments we receive each week. Think we’ve... More

Bailey v. Potter, Facebook Edition

By Megan Garber   Jan 8, 2010 at 03:45 PM

Sometimes we have some fun with HuffPo. But that's not to say that the outlet, in its broader scope, doesn't... More

BREAKING: Ice Cream Tasty; Kittens Cute, Cuddly

By Megan Garber   Jan 8, 2010 at 03:41 PM

Just because it's Friday...behold, per 11 Points, eleven of "the most painfully obvious newspaper articles ever." Including: More

WSJ Eyeballs Upcoming Bank of America Bonuses

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 8, 2010 at 03:38 PM

The Wall Street Journal continues to spotlight the record—or near-record—pay coming on Wall Street. Remember Bank of America until recently... More

Journalism That Matters Conference—Watch It Live

By Megan Garber   Jan 8, 2010 at 02:24 PM

The Journalism That Matters Conference (official title: "Re-imagining News & Community in the Pacific Northwest") is taking place today and... More

Reform, or “Reform”?

Mixed results as press tries to gauge meaning of Dodd’s retirement

By Greg Marx   Jan 8, 2010 at 11:49 AM

This story has been updated. See note at conclusion. The upcoming retirement of Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), and what it... More

Mission: Quality Control

If you’re going to upend the old editorial process, you need to create a new one

By Craig Silverman   Jan 8, 2010 at 11:43 AM

At this time last year, I made a few wishes for corrections and accuracy-related developments in 2009. For the most... More

The Fed and AIG, Day Two

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 8, 2010 at 10:07 AM

All too often the press seems to want to downplay stories broken by a competitor. So it's good to see... More

Thursday Links: More Fed/AIG, Reuters and SAC, Netflix

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 7, 2010 at 07:35 PM

The New York Times's DealBook prints the Federal Reserve/AIG emails spotlighted in Bloomberg's scoop this morning, though as the FT's... More

Picture This

Notes from a life behind the lens

By John Costello   Jan 7, 2010 at 06:15 PM

John Costello began work as a photojournalist at fifteen, bicycling to his first assignment at the McKean County Miner in... More

WSJ Revisits the Carried-Interest Tax

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 7, 2010 at 04:19 PM

What ever happened to the carried-interest tax? The Wall Street Journal looks at that today, reporting that hedge funds and... More

Just in Time for Winter

Homans on weathermen as climate skeptics

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 7, 2010 at 03:53 PM

The cover story in the current issue of CJR, about why climate skepticism is so common among television weather forecasters,... More

What’s So Funny?

A little less levity could be good for Dana Milbank

By Greg Marx   Jan 7, 2010 at 03:24 PM

This week’s media news included the tidbit that The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, who’s been poking fun at D.C.’s political... More

“Walrus Oral Sex: Pleasures Self In Sex Act At Aquarium (VIDEO) (NSFW)”

By Megan Garber   Jan 7, 2010 at 01:26 PM

Guess who? More

Kudos to The Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette

For localizing the health reform story

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 7, 2010 at 11:24 AM

Before Christmas, Kate Long, the writing coach for The Charleston Gazette, contacted me about the media’s disinterest in the Children’s... More

McCullough to Head AP’s Social Network Center

By Megan Garber   Jan 7, 2010 at 10:58 AM

Congrats to Lauren McCullough, who's been named AP's Manager of Social Networks and News Engagement at the org's "Nerve Center"... More

Bloomberg Continues to Lead on the Fed and AIG

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 7, 2010 at 10:03 AM

Bloomberg has the story of the day today, an eye-raising scoop that the New York Federal Reserve, then headed by... More

Hot Air

Why don’t TV weathermen believe in climate change?

By Charles Homans   Jan 7, 2010 at 07:00 AM

The small makeup room off the main floor of KUSI's studios, in a suburban canyon on the north end of... More

Wednesday Links: Double Dip, Fed Failure, Chicago School

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 6, 2010 at 07:47 PM

Randall W. Forsyth of Barron's is calling a double-dip recession, pointing to the declining money supply calculated by John Williams'... More

Pyramid Schemes

Newspapers should feel free to go long

By Megan Garber   Jan 6, 2010 at 05:40 PM

We are, as a culture, growing ever more informal with each other. Traditional social hierarchies are compressing, and one effect... More

BW on How the Dems Watered Down Reform

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 6, 2010 at 05:14 PM

Bloomberg's acquisition of BusinessWeek may be paying off for its journalism. The cover story in BW is by two Bloomberg... More

Smashing the Tablets

By Alexandra Fenwick   Jan 6, 2010 at 12:55 PM

Jeff Bercovici, media industry reporter for AOL's DailyFinance blog, writing here for the New York Observer, takes aim at the... More

Source says: President likes Puppies, Rainbows

By Clint Hendler   Jan 6, 2010 at 11:32 AM

In CJR's just published report card on the Obama administration's first year transparency record, I gave the White House an... More

Salmon on Why the NYT is Boring—and Why That’s OK

By Greg Marx   Jan 6, 2010 at 11:07 AM

At his Reuters blog, Felix Salmon agrees with "pretty much everything" in that Michael Kinsley column I wrote about yesterday,... More

WSJ on the Russian Oligarchy’s Survival

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 6, 2010 at 09:53 AM

The Wall Street Journal this morning profiles an aluminum tycoon on what he reveals about the Russian oligarchy's symbiotic relationship... More

Tuesday Links: The Great Ambiguity, ARMs Crisis, Bailing Out

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 5, 2010 at 07:46 PM

The New York Times handles the economic-stats news well today with a story that points out the bright spots in... More

The Real Dow

The press almost never reports stock prices in context. It should.

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 5, 2010 at 05:16 PM

You rarely see anyone, much less the press, report stock returns in inflation-adjusted terms. As we pointed out in October... More

Is Shorter Really Better?

Why all those quotes in newspaper stories are a good thing

By Greg Marx   Jan 5, 2010 at 03:46 PM

Michael Kinsley gets in some good shots against easy targets in his new Atlantic piece arguing that newspaper articles are... More

Thus Be It Resolved…

Suggest a New Year’s resolution for a journalist or two

By The Editors   Jan 5, 2010 at 01:29 PM

Now that we’re a good five days into 2010 and you’ve already broken your own New Year’s resolutions, we at... More

The Nation—Now with a Low, Low Introductory Rate!

By Megan Garber   Jan 5, 2010 at 01:16 PM

To be clear, this is not from The Onion: (via Kevin Drum) Update: Thanks to Scott Klein, currently of ProPublica... More

A Heartbreaking Quirk of Staggering Genius

By Megan Garber   Jan 5, 2010 at 12:26 PM

If you haven't already, I highly recommend checking out the A.V. Club's interview with McSweeney's founder/Panorama instigator/slow-word mover/all-around logophile Dave... More

Hey, I-Reporters—Get Your Props (And Also: Your $20,000)

By Megan Garber   Jan 5, 2010 at 11:19 AM

The application deadline for the Nieman Foundation's Worth Bingham Prize for investigative journalism is this Friday, January 8. More

NYT PINs Visa on Transaction Fees

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 5, 2010 at 10:05 AM

How screwed up does an industry have to be for competition to increase prices? That's the smart question at the... More

Head Cases

An expanded version of CJR’s Jan/Feb 2010 interview with NYT reporter Alan Schwarz

By Brent Cunningham   Jan 5, 2010 at 08:00 AM

In 2007 The New York Times hired Alan Schwarz largely on the basis of his initial freelance reporting for the... More

Report Card

Obama’s marks at Transparency U.

By Clint Hendler   Jan 5, 2010 at 12:00 AM

In the year since President Obama took office, he has made significant progress on transparency and access issues. Still, there... More

Monday Links: The Busted Decade, Hearst’s Skiff, Apple’s Tablet

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 4, 2010 at 08:32 PM

The Washington Post puts the economic disaster that was the 2000's into proper context with a story and some good... More

Ecstasy: In Tablet Form Since ‘94

By Megan Garber   Jan 4, 2010 at 05:31 PM

As tech bloggers, media-watchers, and pretty much all the remaining members of the journalism profession rumor-monger and wax enthusiastic about... More

Yemen 101

By Megan Garber   Jan 4, 2010 at 04:27 PM

"Face it," Ken Silverstein begins, "until recently many of you didn’t know for sure if Yemen was a country or... More

Dust-up at The Washington Post

And new questions about the new news services

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 4, 2010 at 04:05 PM

This weekend the Internet was all a-twitter over a piece that The Washington Post ran right before New Year’s, headlined:... More

The Journalist Father and the Soldier Son

By Alexandra Fenwick   Jan 4, 2010 at 04:05 PM

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel recently ran a notable series of dispatches from Afghanistan called "A Father's Journey; Searching For Answers... More

Trudy Lieberman Entitlement Reform Archive

A complete archive of Trudy Lieberman’s articles on Social Security reform and Obama’s deficit commission

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 4, 2010 at 03:58 PM

This is a list of every article on the subject of entitlement reform that Trudy Lieberman has written for Campaign... More

“Don’t Make Me Pull over This Commenting Platform”

By Megan Garber   Jan 4, 2010 at 03:52 PM

The Pantagraph, local paper of Bloomington and nearby central Illinois towns, has turned off the commenting feature on its site's... More

Tall Tales from Dubai

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 4, 2010 at 03:47 PM

The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is a quarter-mile taller than any other office or residential tower in the world. It's... More

More Info on Politico’s Revenues

By Greg Marx   Jan 4, 2010 at 03:40 PM

My brief piece a month ago asking whether Politico was really “new media” focused more on editorial output than biz-side... More

Fox to History: ‘Get Me Rewrite’

By Megan Garber   Jan 4, 2010 at 02:57 PM

Here is a declaration made by a panelist during the most recent episode of Fox News Watch--the media-criticism show that... More

gov.sarah@yahoo.com

By Alexandra Fenwick   Jan 4, 2010 at 02:43 PM

The Alaska Dispatch, an online news magazine launched last August, has published the first of a two part-er on former... More

Best of 2009: Trudy Lieberman

Lieberman picks her top stories from 2009

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 4, 2010 at 02:42 PM

1. The "Baucus Watch" series: Sixteen posts that describe the machinations, in-fighting, and political pressure on the Senate Finance Committee... More

Don’t Be Shy about the Lip Gloss, and Other Tips for Kevin Drum

By Megan Garber   Jan 4, 2010 at 02:41 PM

So Kevin Drum, Mother Jones uber-blogger, is soon to make his television debut. And he is seeking advice before his... More

$0.0089 a Word

By Megan Garber   Jan 4, 2010 at 02:14 PM

The HuffPo payment model--bloggers-blog-for-free--is one thing. This is quite another: (h/t Craig Silverman) More

Of Journalism and Superheroes

By Alexandra Fenwick   Jan 4, 2010 at 02:07 PM

California Watch, a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting, is the latest recipient of Knight Foundation money to go... More

Michael Vick, They’ve Heard of You in Iraq

By Greg Marx   Jan 4, 2010 at 01:46 PM

Over the weekend, The Washington Post featured a strong article about Iraqi anger at the dismissal of charges against five... More

Word

When auld acquaintance be forgot

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 4, 2010 at 11:49 AM

As the new year begins, we’re reeling from an overload of retrospective lists: top news stories; persons of the year;... More

Editor, Publisher, and Webmaster

By Megan Garber   Jan 4, 2010 at 11:08 AM

So your 125-year-old media-industry magazine suddenly folds. Do you: A. Start a blog. B. Blog about starting a blog. C.... More

The Post Spotlights Secret-Chemicals Law

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 4, 2010 at 09:52 AM

The Washington Post has an eye-opening story this morning on "secret chemicals" concealed from everyone but a few EPA officials... More

Best of 2009: Alexandra Fenwick

Fenwick picks her top stories from 2009

By Alexandra Fenwick   Jan 4, 2010 at 08:00 AM

My two-part interview in November with the former New York Times Shanghai bureau chief, Howard French, on misguided press coverage... More