Just How Anti-Gay Marriage is That Chikin?

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 31, 2011 at 07:36 PM

The New York Times' story in yesterday's paper about the Southern chicken chain Chick-fil-A leaves much to be desired. Here's... More

Overnight Sensation

A wordier term for dusk to dawn

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 31, 2011 at 04:03 PM

The weather outside was frightful, and so was the advisory from the National Weather Service. Not known for their literary... More

To Fear or Not to Fear

The (American) Web on The Muslim Brotherhood

By Joel Meares   Jan 31, 2011 at 03:52 PM

The Muslim Brotherhood has agreed to back secular opposition voice Mohamed ElBaradei as official spokesman of Egypt’s opposition groups... More

An Internet Censorship Workaround

A brief explainer on Tor, and how you can help

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 31, 2011 at 03:50 PM

Last week we learned that Egypt only has four major ISPs, making it relatively easy for the government to shut... More

Bloomberg Talks to a Cassandra at Davos

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 31, 2011 at 12:56 PM

I really like how Bloomberg puts together this story on a financial consultant warning the end is nigh from the... More

Science Faltering?

Obama wants more R&D, but few willing to discuss research productivity

By Robert Fortner   Jan 31, 2011 at 12:45 PM

President Obama wants “to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space... More

Politico Kicks Off 2012

Bold new site complete with “Santa Tracker”

By Joel Meares   Jan 31, 2011 at 11:58 AM

Depending on your tastes, this weekend’s launch of Politico 2012 LIVE might be the Second Coming of Christ or the... More

Mubarak’s Attempt to Mute 80 Million

An old dictator outdoes himself

By Justin D. Martin   Jan 29, 2011 at 01:41 PM

Editor’s Note: This commentary was dictated via telephone from Cairo, as the Egyptian government has shut down Internet access across... More

Audit Notes: Politico’s Goldman PR, ProPublica Vindicated, Mark to Myth

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 28, 2011 at 06:06 PM

The Huffington Post's Peter S. Goodman points to a bizarre report in Politico this morning: Much was made of a... More

Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission FAIL

Mostly lackluster coverage of a lackluster report

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 28, 2011 at 01:35 PM

The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission released its report yesterday and the press play indicates that it's either an utter failure... More

The Return of Alan Simpson

Parsing his latest thoughts on Social Security

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 28, 2011 at 12:30 PM

Alan Simpson, the co-chair of President Obama’s now-defunct deficit commission, showed up on Fox News the other day to talk... More

Reporting a Revolution in Cairo

A Q&A with Chris Stanton of The National

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 28, 2011 at 10:00 AM

Chris Stanton, a New Jersey native who has worked for several years for The National, an English-language newspaper in Abu... More

Audit Notes: Baffled Wall Street Historians, Too Much Demand, Deficits to Shrink

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 27, 2011 at 09:28 PM

Here's your Quote of the Day, from The New York Times's story on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report. Wall... More

Get To Know Jay Carney

And the target on his back

By Joel Meares   Jan 27, 2011 at 04:42 PM

If reports are true, the White House will announce tomorrow that Jay Carney, the former Time magazine Washington bureau chief... More

Blogging from Biology Class

Staten Island high school students team up with Nature Education

By Cristine Russell   Jan 27, 2011 at 04:39 PM

If you’re worried about the future of science journalism, take solace in two fourteen-year-old students named Sam and Naseem who... More

A New Commitment to Transparency at ESPN

Network to codify its standards and practices

By Craig Silverman   Jan 27, 2011 at 02:34 PM

In October the National Republican Congressional Committee sent an e-mail to supporters that was signed by former Notre Dame football... More

Debt and Weed

The president faces a YouTube nation

By Joel Meares   Jan 27, 2011 at 02:32 PM

At 2.30 p.m. (EST) President Obama will appear on YouTube answering questions submitted by the website’s users. With questions... More

Keller’s WikiLeaks Think Piece

Assange bad; leaks good

By Joel Meares   Jan 27, 2011 at 12:16 PM

Times executive editor Bill Keller has a 7,900-plus word piece in Sunday’s magazine called “Dealing with Assange and the Secrets... More

Before We Meet the Press Secretary

A chance for all to raise the bar

By Joel Meares   Jan 27, 2011 at 12:05 PM

The new White House press secretary is likely to be announced today or tomorrow. Whoever it is, they will step... More

Fact Checking the Fact Checkers

PolitiFact is half right on two State of the Union truth-o-meters

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 27, 2011 at 11:08 AM

Commenter James asked me to take a look at a couple of verdicts from PolitiFact on the State of the... More

Any Questions?

Sociolinguists study the changes in presidential press conferences over five decades

By Michael Schudson and Julia Sonnevend   Jan 27, 2011 at 10:15 AM

Sociolinguists are sociologists who study how people talk to one another. They are typically interested in naturally occurring speech, but... More

Demand Media IPO Valued Higher Than The NYT

Here’s why we care

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 27, 2011 at 08:50 AM

Demand Media’s stock made a grand entrance on Wall Street on Wednesday, jumping 37 percent on its first day of... More

The NYT Melts the Right’s Anti-Labor Snow Job

All but wiping out propaganda about sanitation workers’ supposed slowdown

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 26, 2011 at 07:20 PM

The New York Times unloads a devastating story about the alleged New York City snowplow slowdown that became a big... More

SOTU Vague on Health Care

Plenty of reading to do between the lines

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 26, 2011 at 03:14 PM

The president’s remarks about health care last night were, well, short and to the point, and that’s pretty much what... More

Talked Out

Who needs Keith Olbermann, anyway?

By Steve Daley   Jan 26, 2011 at 02:43 PM

Like a lot of folks I was surprised by the apparent sacking of Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, if for no... More

NYT Photographer Moises Saman Injured in Tunisia

By Joel Meares   Jan 26, 2011 at 01:54 PM

The New York Times's Lens blog reports that photographer Moises Saman was "mildly injured" on Tuesday in Tunisia when six... More

Q&A: Former NYT Shanghai Bureau Chief Howard French, Part Two

On how the press covered Hu’s visit

By Joel Meares   Jan 26, 2011 at 12:57 PM

In the wake of Chinese president Hu Jintao's four-day U.S. trip, CJR assistant editor Joel Meares discussed the media's take... More

In Deep Water

Reporters explore socio-economic complexity underlying floods in Brazil, Australia

By Sanhita Reddy   Jan 26, 2011 at 12:33 PM

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — No one is singing in the rain. The mudslides here and the floods in Australia... More

Beltway Reacts to Passing of Meet the Press “Butler”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 26, 2011 at 12:22 PM

Today, the Washington Post profiles Saadalla Mohamed Aly, the "perenially tuxedoed butler" (no lie!) for NBC's Sunday morning political chat... More

Andrea Mitchell Crosses the Line

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 26, 2011 at 11:47 AM

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell was bummed out yesterday on her show, Andrea Mitchell Reports, when Melody Barnes, director of the White... More

The Times’s Fluffy Coverage of the State of the Union

A poor show that amplifies Obama’s public-relations spiel

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 26, 2011 at 11:47 AM

Did The New York Times really need to lead its page one with a two-column, three-line headline about a pedestrian... More

SOTU: What the pundits are saying

A morning-after roundup

By Joel Meares   Jan 26, 2011 at 10:59 AM

So the State of the Union played out something like a slowly deflating balloon—robust and shiny in the beginning,... More

State of the Union, in a Word

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 26, 2011 at 10:19 AM

Last night NPR asked listeners to describe President Obama's State of the Union address "in three words," and then ran... More

Audit Notes: FCIC Report, Reuters Talking Points, WSJ Sues

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 25, 2011 at 08:07 PM

The New York Times gets hold of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report first and it seems somewhat promising. Here's... More

Ezra Klein’s Flawed Assumptions on Trade With China

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 25, 2011 at 07:11 PM

Ezra Klein accepts some unfortunate assumptions in his Washington Post column on trade yesterday morning. Let's start with this one:... More

A Note on the State of the Union

Let’s go beyond the theater

By Joel Meares   Jan 25, 2011 at 06:22 PM

If you hadn’t already dismissed the State of the Union address as a kind of political Oscars—a room full of... More

The Most Tech-Enhanced SOTU Yet

More reasons to ditch your TV and watch online

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 25, 2011 at 04:05 PM

Don’t have a TV to watch tonight's State of the Union address? Or do you just get bored with all... More

What Not to Do in Campaign Reporting

Star Tribune writes down Bachmann’s “strong opinions”

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 25, 2011 at 03:56 PM

Campaign 2012 is underway, even with but one declared Republican contender. And so comes an example of What Not to... More

Q&A: Former NYT Shanghai Bureau Chief Howard French

On how the press covered Hu Jintao’s visit

By Joel Meares   Jan 25, 2011 at 03:25 PM

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s four-day U.S. trip last week produced a number of takeaways: the two countries’ business communities will... More

So Long, Olbermann

What’s next for NBC?

By The Editors   Jan 25, 2011 at 01:05 PM

With one abrupt announcement at the end of his show on Friday, Keith Olbermann ended his run on MSNBC, where... More

A Shout Out to David Gregory

For pinning down Eric Cantor on Meet the Press

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 25, 2011 at 01:00 PM

David Gregory’s Meet the Press interview Sunday with new House Majority Leader Eric Cantor should be required reading in every... More

The Growing Problem of Search Engine Spam

And what Google says it’s doing about it

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 25, 2011 at 12:00 PM

Last week, Google News’s Krishna Bharat spoke at Columbia University about what makes his search engine so helpful and efficient... More

Insurer Alleges Fraud by Bear Stearns and JPMorgan

Selling a “sack of shit” and then demanding money back while denying investors theirs

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 25, 2011 at 11:49 AM

Bloomberg News has a story of the day, reporting that JPMorgan Chase/Bear Stearns is being sued by the insurance company... More

Bad Medicine

Seth Mnookin’s new book asks, are vaccine fears endangering our health?

By Harriet A. Washington   Jan 25, 2011 at 10:30 AM

The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear | By Seth Mnookin | Simon & Schuster |... More

Audit Notes: Crisis Panel Has Teeth?, Mortgage Fraud, Corporate Size

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 24, 2011 at 08:44 PM

Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post scoops that the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission may just have some impact after all:... More

Add It Up

Bad math mars coverage of penguin banding, climate change

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 24, 2011 at 06:03 PM

In the last two weeks, reporters have repeated false numbers provided by a study and a report (and by their... More

SOTU Spoilers Make For Dull Reading

A day is not a long wait

By Joel Meares   Jan 24, 2011 at 02:58 PM

Could not help but notice two Tweets today that seem to sum up my own view of State of the... More

The Fast Lain

Figuring out ‘lay’ and ‘lie’

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 24, 2011 at 02:49 PM

It’s no “lie”: Many people get “lay” and “lie” wrong a lot. So let’s “lay” down the rules. The best... More

NYT On The LAT’s Community Relations Problem

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 24, 2011 at 01:42 PM

The front page of Monday’s New York Times business page pays a backhanded compliment to its West Coast rival with... More

Resistance Is Futile for Alabama’s White Collar Criminals

The Journal takes an excellent look at tough state regulator Joseph Borg

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 24, 2011 at 01:36 PM

The Wall Street Journal has a superb Money & Investing profile this morning of an Alabama securities regulator who makes... More

Steny Hoyer’s “Adjustments” Warning

Is the MSM listening?

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 24, 2011 at 12:57 PM

Should seniors on Medicare and those about to join the program be worried about benefit cuts? That was an issue... More

New York’s Obama WH Profile Juicy and Lite

Heilemann on the Obama redux

By Joel Meares   Jan 24, 2011 at 12:01 PM

John Heilemann has the cover of New York this week—out today with a picture of the president on the front,... More

Don’t Forget Massey Energy’s Long History of Violations

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 21, 2011 at 08:54 PM

Federal investigators' preliminary report is out on the April coal mine explosion that killed 29 West Virginia miners. Was it... More

Resignation Follows U.K. Phone Hacking Scandal

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 21, 2011 at 03:30 PM

Andy Coulson, the communication director for British prime minister David Cameron, has resigned as a result of the ongoing “phone... More

A Suspicious Palin Moratorium

By Joel Meares   Jan 21, 2011 at 02:32 PM

So… Dana Milbank at The Washington Post is calling for February to be a Sarah Palin-free month. Not in the... More

Republican Study Committee Gets Specific

Reporters grapple with complexities

By Joel Meares   Jan 21, 2011 at 12:44 PM

The Republican Study Committee—a conservative committee which includes about three quarters of the Republican House conference—released a plan yesterday that,... More

Q & A: Stephen Abell

Talking with the director of the U.K.’s Press Complaints Commission

By Craig Silverman   Jan 21, 2011 at 12:39 PM

In late December, British tabloid The Sun published a correction to a sensational story it had writ large on the... More

Q & A: Election Law Expert Richard L. Hasen

How the press fared covering the post-Citizens United landscape, and stories to do now

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 21, 2011 at 12:32 PM

On the eve of the one year anniversary of the Supreme Court's controversial decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election... More

Pearlstein: On China Trade, an Eye for an Eye

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 21, 2011 at 12:09 PM

Of all the commentary this week on China, none got to the heart of the problem anywhere near as well... More

Google News is “The Most Efficient System”

Krishna Bharat on how Google helps journalists stay focused

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 21, 2011 at 12:00 PM

On Wednesday, Google News product manager Krishna Bharat spoke to Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism students about how Google... More

The NYT Throws Gasoline on the State-Bankruptcy Flames

By Felix Salmon   Jan 21, 2011 at 11:28 AM

Talk of introducing legislation allowing states to declare bankruptcy began in earnest in November. A speech by Newt Gingrich was... More

New Survey Says Fox Least Trusted

But there are more questions to be asked

By Joel Meares   Jan 20, 2011 at 03:05 PM

Public Policy Polling yesterday released its annual study of people’s trust in TV news, and the results are sure to... More

Technology’s Role in Tunisia

The easiest narrative isn’t the only one that matters

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 20, 2011 at 02:05 PM

Last week, as years of frustration by the Tunisian people culminated in self-immolation, street protests, and the ouster of President... More

Repealing the Health Law

Symbol or grand strategy?

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 20, 2011 at 02:03 PM

The recent stories about Republican efforts to repeal the health reform law all telegraphed the same story lines. One: the... More

Inc.’s Excellent Story on Entrepreneurship in Norway

By Felix Salmon   Jan 20, 2011 at 01:18 PM

Max Chafkin has a fantastic story in Inc magazine about how to structure an economy so as to encourage entrepreneurship,... More

Pardon Me?

Hu’s admission lost in translation

By Joel Meares   Jan 20, 2011 at 01:15 PM

Yesterday’s White House press conference with President Obama and Chinese president Hu Jintao was a somewhat stilted affair, mostly due... More

Head-Smacking Headline Typo

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 20, 2011 at 12:00 PM

The front page of Monday’s edition: Hey, we’ve all been there. In all of my time doing copy editing, I’ve... More

Her Great Depression

Re-reading Betty MacDonald’s Anybody Can Do Anything, on the Northwest’s bust years

By Claire Dederer   Jan 20, 2011 at 10:00 AM

From the time I was nine or ten, I carried a spiral-bound Mead notebook with me at all times. I... More

Audit Notes: The Too Big to Fail Get Bigger, News Corp. Scandal, FT on Fire

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 19, 2011 at 09:56 PM

The Huffington Post reports that the Obama administration, far from splitting up the too-big-to-fail banks, will allow them to get... More

DealBook Leaves Out the Links in Its Goldman Story

By Felix Salmon   Jan 19, 2011 at 05:31 PM

DealBook and Footnoted—the very epitome of professional financial blogs—have collaborated in a big investigation of Goldman Sachs's regulatory filings and... More

OMG! Skinny Bam Bam Has Parasites (ew)

By Joel Meares   Jan 19, 2011 at 05:20 PM

The National Enquirer, that once maligned rag whose name can now be whispered in the same sentence as “Pulitzer Prize”—though... More

Who’s Afraid of a Little Passing Press Scrutiny?

Politico on the fundraising freshmen

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 19, 2011 at 04:12 PM

They’re quick studies, the newest members of Congress, according to this story from Politico’s Kenneth P. Vogel. Vogel reports that... More

The NewsHour Blows a Health Story

Leaving misconceptions on the table

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 19, 2011 at 03:36 PM

It’s not clear what the public took away from the PBS NewsHour segment on health care last night. Perhaps confusion,... More

No Surprises; Good Riddance

The press and Dems react to Lieberman

By Joel Meares   Jan 19, 2011 at 02:22 PM

In politics, it seems you’re only as good—or as bad—as your last term and your last poll. That’s the lesson... More

The Frugal Writer

Why use several words when one will do?

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 19, 2011 at 01:31 PM

At some points in time, people engaged in the profession of journalism tend to learn to acquire the negatively associative... More

Tunisia “Mesmerized” Journalists

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 19, 2011 at 01:18 PM

Worth a re-read, (especially) in light of current events in Tunisia: this CJR piece from November in which Justin D.... More

The SPJ’s Tough Call

Should SPJ have retired the Helen Thomas Award?

By The Editors   Jan 19, 2011 at 01:09 PM

In June of last year, White House press corps vet Helen Thomas resigned from her columnist’s post with Hearst Newspapers... More

Yet Again, Fannie and Freddie Didn’t Do It

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 19, 2011 at 11:30 AM

Michael Hudson writes one of the most convincing Fannie and Freddie Didn't Do It pieces yet. Actually, my soundbite isn't... More

Adventures in Markets Reporting

By Felix Salmon   Jan 19, 2011 at 10:12 AM

European stocks went up today, and European bonds went down. That happens, sometimes. But there was lots of news floating... More

Audit Notes: Bad Times with FINRA, Apple, and Co-bylines

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 18, 2011 at 08:58 PM

The New York Times's DealBook drops a beat sweetener profiling the new head of FINRA, that toothless in-house regulator of... More

The Dead Source Who Keeps on Giving

Fortune joins the WSJ in putting Jerome York on the record after his death

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 18, 2011 at 06:53 PM

Back in March, I noticed The Wall Street Journal appearing to burn an off-the-record source a few days after he... More

The Hottest Thing in Science Blogging

ScienceOnline2011 conference puts convergence of old and new media on display

By Cristine Russell   Jan 18, 2011 at 05:22 PM

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, North Carolina — The hot ticket for science bloggers and online writers this year was a once-obscure... More

Comcast Takeover of NBC Gets the Go-Ahead

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 18, 2011 at 04:15 PM

The Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission announced on Tuesday that they would approve the merger of Comcast and... More

Roger Ailes in a Strange Light

Esquire’s big, perplexing profile

By Joel Meares   Jan 18, 2011 at 03:42 PM

Esquire’s Roger Ailes profile, available online today, is a strange and fascinating read—a kind of nuanced, satirical “F-you” to a... More

Is Oprah’s Boring-ness Contagious?

By Joel Meares   Jan 18, 2011 at 01:36 PM

I caught the last ten minutes of CNN’s debut of Piers Morgan Tonight on Monday. Accordingly, I will refrain from... More

Health Care Red Meat from Politico

Business writers, take note

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 18, 2011 at 12:26 PM

One of the most illuminating health care stories to come along in the last couple weeks was Politico’s take on... More

Vanessa M. Gezari on “Crossfire in Kandahar”: a CJR Podcast

By The Editors   Jan 18, 2011 at 11:50 AM

The January/February issue cover story, "Crossfire in Kandahar," discusses the particular obstacles that journalists face when reporting in Afghanistan, even... More

The Euro-Default Drumbeat Loudens

By Felix Salmon   Jan 18, 2011 at 11:43 AM

The drumbeat for debt restructurings on Europe's periphery is becoming too loud to ignore. The Economist has now come out... More

The NYT Tosses Off a Paywall Story

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 18, 2011 at 11:10 AM

The New York Times has a brief report today raising hopes about the prospects of a pay model for newspapers.... More

D.C.’s Early Risers on the Import of Info

But Times report lacking a lot of its own

By Joel Meares   Jan 18, 2011 at 10:24 AM

A piece on page A14 of this morning’s Times details the pre-dawn “information wars” raging every morning in Washington D.C.—or,... More

Beyond the Facts

A partisan era requires a vigorous press

By The Editors   Jan 18, 2011 at 10:00 AM

The voters have seated a new House of Representatives with an agenda dramatically at odds with that of the president,... More

Shielding Reality

By Clint Hendler   Jan 17, 2011 at 01:18 PM

Take the time on this holiday to read SF Weekly’s fascinating and troubling look from last week at Bait Car,... More

Miss America’s WikiThoughts

By Joel Meares   Jan 17, 2011 at 12:17 PM

You have read our own Clint Hendler on “The WikiLeaks Equation.” The Nation’s Greg Mitchell has been blogging about it... More

“Everyone has a past.”

New Yorker’s brutal Issa profile and, yes, Howard Kurtz

By Joel Meares   Jan 17, 2011 at 12:12 PM

We all knew Ryan Lizza’s profile of Darrell Issa was coming. After all, it was a call from Lizza... More

For Your MLK Day Viewing Pleasure

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 17, 2011 at 11:30 AM

On the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Democracy Now has put together a special episode with excerpts of... More

Audit Notes: Beer Buys Off the ‘Burg?, Apple As Bully, Bank Propaganda

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 14, 2011 at 09:09 PM

This New York Times story, which reports that residents of Brooklyn's Williamsburg protested a Duane Reade chain store coming into... More

Jerry Brown extends arms to press?

By Joel Meares   Jan 14, 2011 at 01:45 PM

Interesting tidbit out of Sacramento today. Capitol Weekly reports that the governor’s press office, which oversees a press corps that... More

Play With The 2010 News Cycle Thanks To Pew

How did Fox, NBC, NPR fill the year’s “newshole”?

By Joel Meares   Jan 14, 2011 at 12:58 PM

Forgive us for not noting this sooner—our attention has been devoted to the Giffords shooting and debates that followed. But... More

On Mugshots and Cover Photos

(And giving your readers what they want)

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 14, 2011 at 12:20 PM

There’s not really all that much we can say about Jared Loughner’s mugshot. Like any image that accompanies a news... More

To Delete or Not to Delete?

Should news organizations and reporters delete erroneous tweets?

By Craig Silverman   Jan 14, 2011 at 11:13 AM

One of the long-standing accuracy debates in journalism centers around whether you should repeat the original error in a correction.... More

The Groupon Bubble

NYT reports Wall Street pitching a $15 billion to $20 billion debut

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 14, 2011 at 11:08 AM

If you doubted, even after Facebook's recent $50 billion valuation, that there's a mini-bubble inflating in tech land, this morning's... More

Chin Up, Journos, The Future’s Bright

Demand for international news is set to explode

By Justin D. Martin   Jan 14, 2011 at 10:00 AM

ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA—Each time I visit the sunny town of my boyhood I’m injected with cold CCs of journalistic despair.... More

Audit Notes: Financial Capture, Homeless, Amy Chua Criticizes WSJ

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 13, 2011 at 08:09 PM

Simon Johnson notes something big that Goldman Sachs dances around in its report on its internal culture released this week... More

Remapping the Debate on China’s Industrial Policy

Our rival has one. Where’s ours?

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 13, 2011 at 04:27 PM

Remapping Debate has an interesting piece on how the U.S. finds itself at the mercy of the Chinese for a... More

Searching for Answers and Questions

The media on what motivated Jared Lee Loughner

By Joel Meares   Jan 13, 2011 at 02:25 PM

Rhetoric didn’t pull the trigger in Tucson. That, most people have come to agree upon. So what did? That’s... More

Soul-Searching at Politico

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 13, 2011 at 12:45 PM

Politico columnist Ben Smith, seemingly moved by President Obama’s speech last night to reflect on his site’s coverage of the... More

The Imperfect Journalist

Author Tom Rachman on how news writing trained him for fiction

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 13, 2011 at 12:00 PM

At a reading at BookCourt in Brooklyn on Sunday night, Tom Rachman seemed humbled by the success his book, The... More

Audit Notes: Mortgage Servicers, Ghost Mall—China Style; The Joneses

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 13, 2011 at 11:53 AM

Andy Kroll of Mother Jones takes a look (UPDATE: took a look, I should say. This story is from a... More

McClelland in Port-au-Prince

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 13, 2011 at 11:21 AM

It's been one year, as of 4:53pm yesterday, since a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti. I highly recommend Mac McClelland's... More

Darts and Laurels

Laurels to a Texas Monthly reporter and an intrepid attorney who worked to free an innocent man

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 13, 2011 at 10:00 AM

When Anthony Graves was arrested for capital murder, he thought it was a practical joke. A surveillance camera in the... More

An Alarming Correction in the Ventura County Star

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 12, 2011 at 03:25 PM

On Monday night, a correction appeared on the website of the Ventura County Star, a Scripps newspaper in southern California.... More

The SEC’s Khuzami and That Citigroup Settlement

An anonymous letter adds to questions about a wrist slap

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 12, 2011 at 01:19 PM

Bloomberg News reported on Monday that the SEC's inspector general is investigating Robert Khuzami, its chief enforcement official, after getting... More

You Know It’s Bad When…

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 12, 2011 at 12:20 PM

In a profile last October, CJR assistant editor Joel Meares wrote of MSNBC host Chuck Todd, He is not only... More

Q&A: Randy Lovely, Editor and Vice President of The Arizona Republic

“To us, all the victims are equally important because they are residents of our state.”

By Joel Meares   Jan 12, 2011 at 10:49 AM

Saturday’s shooting in Tucson was something of a marathon challenge for The Arizona Republic’s staff of 310. For starters, the... More

Giffords’ Medical Care

Healthy dose of science coverage adds context

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 12, 2011 at 08:30 AM

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords remained in critical condition on Tuesday afternoon after sustaining a gunshot wound to the head on Saturday,... More

WSJ Spotlights Wage Declines of the Laid Off

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 11, 2011 at 08:41 PM

The Wall Street Journal is excellent today with this front-page examination of what the recession is doing to wages of... More

On Haiti

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 11, 2011 at 04:19 PM

It was a year ago, tomorrow, that Haiti experienced a devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake. The AP's Jonathan M. Katz, the... More

Bloomberg News Oversells and Underperforms on Toyota’s Decline

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 11, 2011 at 02:38 PM

Bloomberg News has a good idea to do a step-back on Toyota and how it's faring a year after its... More

A Lost Opportunity at The Columbus Dispatch

How news sites can use YouTube to their advantage

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 11, 2011 at 02:30 PM

By now you’ve probably heard the feel-good story of Ted Williams, the man with the “Golden Voice” who went from... More

Room For Debate?

No connection to Giffords, but rhetoric debate still to be had

By Joel Meares   Jan 11, 2011 at 02:17 PM

News and analysis continues to swell following the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday. Broadly: Giffords remains... More

Accuracy and Crisis

Were early, erroneous reports of Giffords’s death preventable?

By The Editors   Jan 11, 2011 at 01:00 PM

“Initial reporting on the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat from Arizona’s Eighth District, was riddled with the kind... More

Welcome to Tribune Company

Key advice for the next chief executive

By Charles M. Madigan   Jan 11, 2011 at 09:30 AM

Dear Sir or Madam: Your most important responsibility before you settle in as CEO is to make certain everyone knows... More

Audit Notes: Ibanez Implications, The Daley Problem, Sbarro Sliced

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 10, 2011 at 08:29 PM

The Ibanez verdict in Massachusetts Supreme Court is yet more confirmation that the foreclosure scandal will have serious repercussions for... More

Craig Silverman on the Biggest WikiLeaks Error: a CJR Podcast

By The Editors   Jan 10, 2011 at 03:15 PM

CJR columnist Craig Silverman wrote on Friday about a very persistent—and highly problematic—error that many major news organizations have made... More

Duty Double

When nouns and verbs collide

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 10, 2011 at 02:58 PM

Headlines are supposed to grab a reader’s attention and provide a fast synopsis of an article for a busy reader.... More

The Wall Street Journal Plays Stenographer to Chris Christie

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 10, 2011 at 01:43 PM

Is this a news story in The Wall Street Journal or a press release from the Office of the Governor... More

Climate Conundrums

Slack coverage, quality issues stir debate

By Curtis Brainard   Jan 10, 2011 at 01:16 PM

2010 was “the year climate coverage ‘fell off the map,’” The Daily Climate, a website that tracks related news and... More

Q&A: Professor of Political Rhetoric Martin J. Medhurst

“Metaphorical violence permeates American political language and always has.”

By Joel Meares   Jan 10, 2011 at 12:58 PM

The attempted assassination of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has sparked a debate about the nature of political rhetoric in the... More

PAC Man

USAT, NYT on skirting federal campaign donation limits (creatively)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 10, 2011 at 12:56 PM

How do potential presidential candidates circumvent donation-limiting federal campaign laws? Let us count the ways. There’s the federal PAC way.... More

Giffords Analysis Machine In Overdrive

The rhetoric narrative swells

By Joel Meares   Jan 10, 2011 at 10:45 AM

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords remains in critical condition. Her alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, is not cooperating with police. The motives... More

The NYT Questions the Value of a Law Degree

By Felix Salmon   Jan 10, 2011 at 07:24 AM

David Segal is the best writer on the NYT's business desk, so it's a good thing that he was chosen... More

Politics Begins at the First Shot

Initial errors aren’t the biggest problems in reporting on congresswoman’s attempted assassination

By Joel Meares   Jan 9, 2011 at 04:14 PM

Mistakes in the first hours Initial reporting on the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat from Arizona’s Eighth District,... More

Whoa, Nelly!

On “reigning in” misspellings and misusage

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 8, 2011 at 07:16 PM

"New Auditor Will Take Reigns in 2011" was the headline. Another article about money said that the "government refuses to... More

Solar system plagued again by thieves

Headlines that editors probably wish they could take back

By The Editors   Jan 8, 2011 at 07:14 PM

Terrorist Is Returned To Prison In Gun Case -The New York Times 10/29/10 Ex-Trader Gets 3 Years In France -The... More

Anger Management

A review of Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right by Dominic Sandbrook

By Sasha Abramsky   Jan 8, 2011 at 07:11 PM

Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right | By Dominic Sandbrook |... More

Brief Encounters

Short reviews of books on Garry Wills and the decline of The New York Times

By James Boylan   Jan 8, 2011 at 07:08 PM

Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Observer | By Garry Wills | Viking | 195 pages, $25.95 This is a... More

Golden Years?

Susan Jacoby takes on the old-age deniers in Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age

By Chris Lehmann   Jan 8, 2011 at 07:05 PM

Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age | By Susan Jacoby | Pantheon Books |... More

Live From Chicago, It’s the Tribune Company!

Putting its talent on stage to reconnect with a local audience

By Tim Townsend   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:59 PM

On a sunny afternoon in October, Tom Skilling, the popular meteorologist on Tribune Company’s WGN-TV, was in a stairwell of... More

Spain’s Not-So-Free Press

Long-promised freedom-of-information legislation stalls

By Richard Schweid   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:55 PM

Ask Spaniards if they have a free press and most will answer yes. After all, since Francisco Franco died in... More

New Media Tips from Jacob Riis

A nineteenth-century journalist for a twenty-first-century world

By Paul Niwa   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:53 PM

In 1878, Jacob Riis, a police reporter for the New York Tribune, stepped out of his office and into the... More

The Pornography Trap

How not to write about rape

By Jina Moore   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:50 PM

In the Spring of 2009, a reporter for the Associated Press published a news feature about rape in the Democratic... More

Hard Numbers

Some stats and figures on the news industry

By The Editors   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:44 PM

100 journalists and analysts to be hired by Bloomberg Government, a D.C.-based subscription service launching in early 2011 $2,495 gets... More

Blog to Print

A Los Angeles blog launches a weekly print tabloid

By Nate Berg   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:42 PM

Everything seems to be dead nowadays, depending on whom you ask. Print is dead. Blogging is dead. The Web is... More

Long-Form Saviors

New technology to encourage the reading of long articles, online and off

By Janet Paskin   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:40 PM

Reading long articles online invites a thicket of distraction—ads, teasers for slideshows, videos, links hawking penny stocks and personal injury... More

Border Tales

A Q & A with Alfredo Corchado, Mexico correspondent, about reporting on drug cartels

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:38 PM

As drug cartel and gang violence escalates, Mexico is becoming one of the most dangerous places in the world to... More

Editor’s Note

Some announcements about CJR as we begin our fiftieth year

By Mike Hoyt   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:34 PM

This month we begin our fiftieth year. The Columbia Journalism Review made its first appearance back in the fall of... More

Notes From Our Online Readers

Readers weigh in with comments on CJR articles on Fox News, MSNBC, and CBS

By The Editors   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:29 PM

In our November/December editorial, we offered some ideas on how to rebuild the democratic conversation to coax readers out of... More

Letters to the Editor

Readers respond to last month’s cover story, “A Media Policy for the Digital Age,” and features on In Demand and photo slideshows

By The Editors   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:26 PM

‘A National Information Utility’ Re: “A Media Policy for the Digital Age” by Steve Coll (CJR, November/December). Driving around Middle... More

Opening Shot

Notes on 2010, the year of WikiLeaks

By The Editors   Jan 8, 2011 at 06:22 PM

It began in April with the release of a video showing Apache helicopter pilots killing civilians, including two Reuters employees,... More

Audit Notes: Pension Woes, Inequality, Another Ratings Fiasco

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 7, 2011 at 07:42 PM

Yves Smith takes on the media's reporting on state pension woes: "If you live in the world according to the... More

The Daley News

What the press is saying about the new COS pick

By Joel Meares   Jan 7, 2011 at 01:31 PM

Yesterday President Obama held a press conference to announce that William Daley—the former commerce secretary who went on to a... More

Death Panels Make a Comeback

And pose some larger questions for the press

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 7, 2011 at 11:51 AM

Well, what do you know? The Obama administration has resurrected the topic of death panels—or, as one Pennsylvania man called... More

Cable Access

Once again: WikiLeaks did not publicly release 250,000 diplomatic cables

By Craig Silverman   Jan 7, 2011 at 11:51 AM

[Update: Craig Silverman elaborates on this column in a new CJR podcast, which you can listen to elsewhere on CJR.org... More

Daley Latest in a Long Line of Business-Friendly Obama Picks

A “conciliatory” move in an administration that’s seen plenty of them

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 7, 2011 at 11:43 AM

The press is calling President Obama's appointment of JPMorgan Chase's William Daley as his new chief of staff a conciliatory... More

Audit Notes: Goldman’s Sophisticated Investors, Abacus Emails, Deindustrialization

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 6, 2011 at 10:14 PM

The New York Times gets an interesting scoop on the Goldman Sachs deal for a stake in Facebook—one that values... More

ProPublica Shows Merrill Paid Traders to Take Its CDOs

An important story on how Wall Street kept the bubble going

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 6, 2011 at 08:25 PM

I really hate when news organizations drop big stories over the holidays. For one, they have far less chance of... More

Hiltzik Takes on the FCC on the Comcast-NBC Deal

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 6, 2011 at 03:53 PM

John Dunbar has a must-read piece in the current issue of Columbia Journalism Review on why the Comcast-NBC Merger is... More

Tele-what?

Reporters must embrace the future with coverage of remote health monitoring

By Neil Versel   Jan 6, 2011 at 01:20 PM

As a journalist who for the last decade has covered the use of information technology in health care, I’m rather... More

Seeing Double (the Errors)

By Liz Cox Barrett   Jan 6, 2011 at 12:20 PM

Explaining our complicated campaign finance system is, yes, complicated. How complicated? Ask the Malveaux twins. Suzanne Malveaux is a CNN... More

Highly Caffeinated and Furious

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 6, 2011 at 12:15 PM

Today’s award for “Best News Article Based on Angry Rantings In the Comments Section of the Starbucks Corporate Website” goes... More

Goodbye Mr. Gibbs

CJR’s writings on the outgoing press secretary

By Joel Meares   Jan 6, 2011 at 12:04 PM

Press secretary Robert Gibbs announced yesterday that he would be stepping down from his position in February. The timing... More

Crossfire in Kandahar

Afghanistan’s new journalists navigate an ambiguous war

By Vanessa M. Gezari   Jan 6, 2011 at 08:00 AM

One hot night in September, less than a week after Afghanistan’s parliamentary election, soldiers from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force... More

Vanity Fair’s Odd HuffPo Story

By Felix Salmon   Jan 6, 2011 at 07:17 AM

What to make of Bill Cohan's big Vanity Fair piece on a slightly skeevy lawsuit where a pair of Democratic... More

Audit Notes: Goldman and Facebook, Chainsaws, Hudson on Tax History

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 5, 2011 at 08:52 PM

Francine McKenna sums up the problem with Facebook's Goldman Sachs investment pretty succinctly over at Forbes: Facebook wants the public’s... More

Bloomberg Continues to Hit Corporate Tax Schemes

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 5, 2011 at 07:26 PM

Jesse Drucker of Bloomberg has been doing some excellent reporting of the corporate-tax system and how companies are manipulating it... More

Bye, Bye Blackbirds

Bizarre reports of dead birds and fish enliven a slow news week

By Cristine Russell   Jan 5, 2011 at 04:01 PM

With remakes of classic films all the rage, it may be time for Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller The Birds to be... More

WSJ Keeps an Eye on Bank Fees

Annual fees for debit cards could be next

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 5, 2011 at 01:48 PM

The Wall Street Journal does a good job today on how banks are plotting new fees to get around the... More

The News from Norway

A comprehensive look at the history of the Norwegian American press

By Kathy Gilsinan   Jan 5, 2011 at 12:18 PM

Norwegian Newspapers in America: Connecting Norway and the New Land by Odd S. Lovoll | MHS Press | 432 pages,... More

Memo to Robert Samuelson

A few more facts on Medicare, please

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 5, 2011 at 11:52 AM

Dear Robert: I read a Washington Post column of yours just after Christmas—the one about the fairness dilemma and how... More

The $100 Billion Question

Did Times fail to do initial reporting?

By Joel Meares   Jan 5, 2011 at 10:19 AM

On the day the 112th Congress will be sworn in, reaction to a New York Times article revealing the... More

Audit Notes: Google v. Groupon, BofA Deal, The 99ers

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 4, 2011 at 11:31 PM

The Wall Street Journal's Shira Ovide writes that Google, spurned by Groupon despite its stunning $6 billion offer for the... More

NYT Sports Editor Apologizes for Column Switcheroo

Piece on Patriots’ decline was altered after a 45-3 win

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 4, 2011 at 04:45 PM

A piece by New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane on Dec. 25 addressed a reader’s concerns about a sports... More

Two-Faced

Beginning January with Janus words

By Merrill Perlman   Jan 4, 2011 at 02:15 PM

Welcome to January, the two-faced month. On the one hand, it’s the start of the new year, a time to... More

What WikiLeaks Means: a CJR Podcast

By The Editors   Jan 4, 2011 at 01:45 PM

WikiLeaks has been around for a while, but this year—beginning in April, when the site posted a video showing the... More

Bank of America’s Sweet Deal on Fannie and Freddie

By Ryan Chittum   Jan 4, 2011 at 01:24 PM

The Washington Post got the best quote on the Bank of America settlement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and... More

Border Tales

Full version of the Jan/Feb 2011 magazine Q&A with Alfredo Corchado

By Lauren Kirchner   Jan 4, 2011 at 01:12 PM

As drug cartel and gang violence escalates, Mexico is becoming one of the most dangerous places in the world to... More

Media New Year’s Resolutions

What are your journalistic resolutions for 2011?

By The Editors   Jan 4, 2011 at 12:54 PM

No point giving up dark chocolate, red wine, or blacker-than-black coffee. We're journalists. We'd last a week. Max. And exercise?... More

The Lowdown on High-Risk Pools

A harbinger of things to come?

By Trudy Lieberman   Jan 4, 2011 at 12:49 PM

It was good to see Amy Goldstein’s fine piece on high-risk insurance pools in The Washington Post. It’s an example... More

“There is no ‘The Tea Party’”

East and West Coast Times’s different approaches to the movement

By Joel Meares   Jan 4, 2011 at 12:10 PM

Tea Party Patriots co-founder and national coordinator Mark Meckler was the lead quote-giver in major New York Times and Los... More

A Television Deal for the Digital Age

How to worry about the Comcast-NBC Universal merger

By John Dunbar   Jan 4, 2011 at 10:00 AM

Update: Two days before Christmas, Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, recommended approval of the Comcast-NBC Universal... More