Campaign Strategies

How should the media determine the sort of coverage a candidate deserves?

By The Editors   May 31, 2011 at 04:58 PM

In one of the posts on Herman Cain's candidacy discussed on Campaign Desk Tuesday, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight calls for... More

Covering the Cain Campaign

Herman Cain’s probably not a serious candidate. That doesn’t mean the press shouldn’t cover him.

By Greg Marx   May 31, 2011 at 04:08 PM

If you headed out early for the Memorial Day weekend, you probably missed an interesting bit of blogosphere back-and-forth about... More

Apology Due

Audit Arbiter says Felix Salmon was off-base and needlessly mean in a 2007 post on a columnist

By Martha M. Hamilton   May 31, 2011 at 03:38 PM

Felix Salmon, an Audit contributor, asked for an arbiter to look into the complaints of a writer named Sean... More

She’s Just Not That Into You

Mainstream media’s Sarah Palin agony

By Joel Meares   May 31, 2011 at 03:34 PM

You will by now no doubt know that Sarah Palin is once again giving the “mainstream media” the runaround on... More

Negative Appositives

Phrases set off by commas

By Merrill Perlman   May 31, 2011 at 01:40 PM

Commas are wonderful tools. They tell a reader to pause, as this one did. They can also tell a reader... More

Bloomberg’s Thin “Made in the USA” Story

Marketers run amok on a luxury manufacturing renaissance

By Ryan Chittum   May 31, 2011 at 12:58 PM

This Bloomberg News story on luxury brands waving the red, white, and blue leaves much to be desired. First, it's... More

Reporters Late to the 2012 Party?

Editors tell Politico why they’re moving so slowly

By Joel Meares   May 31, 2011 at 12:42 PM

Given the saturation-level coverage of the Palin family’s Winnebago vacation this Memorial Day weekend, you might be surprised to... More

Medicare’s Real Cost Problem

Covering Medicare, part six

By Trudy Lieberman   May 31, 2011 at 11:45 AM

Perhaps no other health issue is as important to so many Americans now and in the future as Medicare. In... More

Media Illustrated

Brooke Gladstone’s new book, The Influencing Machine, reviewed in comic format

By Ted Rall   May 31, 2011 at 10:00 AM

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Audit Notes: Saudis Blame Wall Street, Made in the U.S., Victims’ Big Haircut

By Ryan Chittum   May 27, 2011 at 08:07 PM

This is very interesting: Kevin G. Hall of McClatchy reports on some Wikileaks cables that show the Saudis telling the... More

Zombie Lie Laboratory Creates 62 Percent Tax Rate Plan

The Wall Street Journal editorial page at work

By Ryan Chittum   May 27, 2011 at 02:31 PM

Stephen Moore of The Wall Street Journal editorial board hacks out an instant classic on how to mislead people with... More

“Death Panels” Report Reaches Depressing Conclusions

The media is ineffective at dispelling false rumors

By Craig Silverman   May 27, 2011 at 11:43 AM

Harold Camping was wrong about the rapture happening this past weekend, but it’s unlikely he’ll ever admit to being wrong... More

He-Said She-Said and Death Panels

A Q&A with the Manship School’s Dr. Regina Lawrence

By Joel Meares   May 27, 2011 at 11:34 AM

Almost two years ago, former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin sent out her infamous “death panels” post on Facebook. The... More

Elizabeth Warren Is Smeared, and the Press Is Along for the Ride

McHenry controversy shows the media copping out with he said-she said stories

By Ryan Chittum   May 27, 2011 at 11:29 AM

You'd think the press could resist the he said-she said copy when the truth is easy to discern. Congressman Patrick... More

Audit Notes: Bloomberg Blues, Weil Audits Goldman’s Board, Does Not Compute

By Ryan Chittum   May 26, 2011 at 07:54 PM

Slate's Jack Shafer shreds Bloomberg View, the new Bloomberg editorial page. He writes, "I'd rather go blind than look at... More

Did ‘Disaffecteds’ Sink Corwin?

Another angle on the Medicare debate in NY-26

By Greg Marx   May 26, 2011 at 05:34 PM

In my first look at the special election in NY-26 (since partially retracted), I wrote that the Tea Party candidate,... More

What’s So Wrong With ‘Parachute Journalism’?

Nothing, if your ruck is packed with research

By Justin D. Martin   May 26, 2011 at 03:23 PM

CAIRO—I’m an avid parachutist, though I’ve never jumped from a plane. A “parachute journalist” is a reporter who drops into... More

More on Early Polls

By Greg Marx   May 26, 2011 at 03:15 PM

Over at The Monkey Cage, John Sides has a quick post following up on my Q & A with him... More

More from Candidate Pawlenty

A glimmer or two of context from the media

By Trudy Lieberman   May 26, 2011 at 03:12 PM

It’s hard to know what to make of Tim Pawlenty, the Gopher State’s ex-governor, tramping around the country building his... More

Tornadoes and Climate Change

McKibben is wrong; many reporters are “making connections”

By Curtis Brainard   May 26, 2011 at 02:15 PM

On Monday, The Washington Post published an op-ed by Bill McKibben, a writer and environmental activist, under the sarcastic headline,... More

Bloomberg Ferrets Out New Details on the Fed’s Bailouts

By Ryan Chittum   May 26, 2011 at 01:43 PM

There were so many bailouts going on in 2008 that Congress apparently forgot about some of them. Bloomberg gets a... More

Darts & Laurels

The Oregonian and Village Voice Media help to de-sensationalize a story

By Lauren Kirchner   May 26, 2011 at 01:00 AM

In early 2009, the FBI organized a nationwide sting operation to rescue victims of sex trafficking and arrest their pimps.... More

Audit Notes: Marketers’ Memories, Labor’s Last Legs, Fortune in Afghanistan

By Ryan Chittum   May 25, 2011 at 07:44 PM

Over at Wired, Jonah Lehrer looks at how marketers invade our heads: A new study, published in The Journal of... More

The Great Comment Challenge

Knight-Mozilla’s initiative to reinvent online news discussions

By Lauren Kirchner   May 25, 2011 at 04:40 PM

It’s easy to complain about the comment sections of news websites. It’s harder to improve them. They’re as problematic as... More

How to Corner the Oil Market

CFTC suit says traders manipulated crude prices in 2008; revisiting a Journal piece

By Ryan Chittum   May 25, 2011 at 02:56 PM

The papers all play up the big news that Commodity Futures Trading Commission lawsuit is accusing three companies of helping... More

A Beat Memo on Medicare

Is the Ryan plan really so novel?

By Trudy Lieberman   May 25, 2011 at 12:54 PM

Perhaps no other health issue is as important to so many Americans now and in the future as Medicare. In... More

Memoirs of an Accidental Sportswriter

Robert Lipsyte’s new memoir recounts fifty years on the sports pages

By Sam Eifling   May 25, 2011 at 12:42 PM

An Accidental Sportswriter | by Robert Lipsyte | Ecco | 256 pages, $25.99 Robert Lipsyte’s An Accidental Sportswriter doesn’t leave... More

A Soros Problem at NPR

The broadcaster ducks again when it should be swinging

By Joel Meares   May 25, 2011 at 12:19 PM

In what will presumably be one of her final columns as NPR ombudswoman, Alicia Shepard has chosen to address concerns... More

Squawk on the Street’s Haines Dies at 65

By Joel Meares   May 25, 2011 at 11:49 AM

CNBC’s Mark Haines died unexpectedly Tuesday night at age 65. Haines was the founding anchor of the network’s popular... More

The Not-So-Great Migration

From the black press to the mainstream—and back again

By Pamela Newkirk   May 25, 2011 at 12:00 AM

It started as a trickle. Sylvester Monroe resigned in 2006 as Sunday national editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and, two... More

Audit Notes: Insider Trading on the Hill, Taibbi, Deficit vs. Jobs Coverage

By Ryan Chittum   May 24, 2011 at 08:11 PM

Dan Froomkin of The Huffington Post reports on some very interesting research finding that the investment portfolios of members of... More

Does Roger Ailes Think Sarah Palin Is an Idiot?

By Joel Meares   May 24, 2011 at 03:12 PM

A bit of Palin overload today at CJR, but the former governor of Alaska has popped up in another... More

WaPo Pulls Up Short On Trade and Tariffs

By Ryan Chittum   May 24, 2011 at 02:12 PM

The Washington Post looks at what happens when the U.S. actually fights low-priced Chinese imports with tariffs: The factories move... More

Palin’s Speechwriter Undone by Nasty Messages

Source asks for cash

By Joel Meares   May 24, 2011 at 01:58 PM

Daily Caller reporter Jonathan Strong has quite the scoop this morning—a series of direct Tweets from Palin speechwriter and... More

Words We Shouldn’t Say

Name some clichéd terms that news sources should avoid

By The Editors   May 24, 2011 at 12:49 PM

Last Friday New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren posted a list of “words we don’t say” to the magazine’s... More

Wrong Q’s in an NYT Q&A

Softballs for the CEO of Deloitte, auditor of financial-crisis failures

By Francine McKenna   May 24, 2011 at 12:29 PM

The Sunday New York Times Business Day section regularly features, “Corner Office,” a column by deputy national editor Adam Bryant,... More

Times’s Bruni Becomes Paper’s First Openly Gay Columnist

By Joel Meares   May 24, 2011 at 12:17 PM

In March we asked our readers whom they thought The New York Times should hire to replace op-ed writers Bob... More

Bloomberg Digs on Secret Money

A report on unreported election spending

By Liz Cox Barrett   May 24, 2011 at 10:54 AM

A tip of the hat to Bloomberg for a recent quadruple-bylined story on the growing role of outside spending—much of... More

Audit Notes: Investigators Eye the Wall Street Mortgage Machine

By Ryan Chittum   May 23, 2011 at 08:19 PM

After years of going nowhere, the investigation of the Wall Street securitization machine behind the financial crisis is finally showing... More

A Great Catch by Ben Smith

Belly-aching about the presidential field is nothing new

By Greg Marx   May 23, 2011 at 03:55 PM

The announcement by Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana, that he won’t run for president in 2012 seems likely... More

Name-Calling

Why descriptions are better than labels

By Merrill Perlman   May 23, 2011 at 03:27 PM

Arnold Schwarzenegger had sex with a woman who was not his wife, and that woman gave birth to their child.... More

A Second Look at NY-26

New polls suggest a role for Medicare, but reasons for caution remain

By Greg Marx   May 23, 2011 at 03:02 PM

A week ago, I called for more restraint in press coverage of tomorrow’s special election in NY-26, which the press... More

Outsourcing Investigations to the Suspects

The Washington Post looks at how the SEC lets companies probe themselves

By Ryan Chittum   May 23, 2011 at 12:48 PM

If you're a watchdog/government regulator and you suspect a company of committing crimes, it's probably not the best idea to... More

Means-Testing Medicare, According to CQ

Covering Medicare, part five

By Trudy Lieberman   May 23, 2011 at 11:48 AM

Perhaps no other health issue is as important to so many Americans now and in the future as Medicare. In... More

Flame Retardants Raise Undue Alarm

Incomplete risk assessment mars coverage of chemicals in kids’ products

By David Ropeik   May 23, 2011 at 11:00 AM

There is a great story in the news right now that illustrates the challenges for journalists who cover environmental risks.... More

Audit Notes: The Massey Report, Objectivity Comics, The Ultrawealthy

By Ryan Chittum   May 20, 2011 at 08:06 PM

Here are the ledes from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times stories this morning on the Massey... More

Adventures With CNBC Anchors’ Statistics

By Felix Salmon   May 20, 2011 at 04:21 PM

CNBC’s Joe Kernen reports the news in the morning in a fast-paced environment where it’s difficult to be 100% accurate.... More

Read Jim Sleeper’s Essay on Ressentiment

By Justin Peters   May 20, 2011 at 03:58 PM

Before it gets too late, I want to take a moment to recommend Jim Sleeper's excellent essay that ran at... More

WNYC On Welfare for the Well-to-Do in the Bronx

By Ryan Chittum   May 20, 2011 at 02:42 PM

Talk about an emblem of welfare for rich folks: Parking garages built for the New York Yankees to accompany their... More

How News Ombudsmen Can Make Themselves Essential

Five easy tips for the modern ombud

By Craig Silverman   May 20, 2011 at 12:24 PM

What do you tell a room filled with doomed journalists? When invited to deliver a keynote address at this year’s... More

Three Journalists Released From Captivity In Libya

By Joel Meares   May 20, 2011 at 09:47 AM

In the opening shot of our May/June magazine we made mention of four journalists that had been captured in Libya... More

Q&A: Sam Apple of The Faster Times, on Alternative Revenue Sources

“Journalism hasn’t ever directly supported itself.”

By Lauren Kirchner   May 20, 2011 at 12:19 AM

Last week, CJR released a new report by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Tow Center for... More

A HuffPost Scoop, Overlooked By the Mainstream Press

HUD finds big banks defrauded taxpayers, but few follow the story

By Ryan Chittum   May 19, 2011 at 07:43 PM

Shahien Nasiripour scored a foreclosure-fraud scandal scoop for The Huffington Post on Monday, reporting that audits of the mortgage industry... More

Q&A: Poli-Sci Blogger John Sides

The GWU professor on what we can—and can’t—learn from early polling

By Greg Marx   May 19, 2011 at 04:03 PM

The 2012 election is almost eighteen months away, but politics junkies are already being treated to polls asking if people... More

Obama’s Big Speech: Is Anyone in the Middle East Listening?

By Greg Marx   May 19, 2011 at 01:20 PM

As the president prepared to deliver his remarks on American policy in the wake of the “Arab Spring,” the lead... More

Before the Web, There Was the Storefront

By Lauren Kirchner   May 19, 2011 at 12:45 PM

A post by Chris Marstall today on The Boston Globe website pulls out some great photos from the Globe’s archives... More

Counting Down to Countdown on Letterman

By Joel Meares   May 19, 2011 at 12:29 PM

Keith Olbermann sat down with David Letterman last night to talk MSNBC, 2012, and his new venture, Countdown with Keith... More

LinkedIn Bubble Trouble

How to report (and what not to leave out) on signs of frothiness in Silicon Valley

By Ryan Chittum   May 19, 2011 at 12:20 PM

I've had a bit of a back and forth on Twitter in the last day with Business Insider's Joe Weisenthal,... More

Charlie LeDuff’s LeDuff-ian Take on the Schwarzenegger Affair

By Joel Meares   May 19, 2011 at 10:49 AM

By now most outlets are running the name of the woman with whom Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered his “love child,” and... More

Q&A: John Temple of Honolulu Civil Beat, on Doing More with Less

“We’re much more nimble, much more able to change course.”

By Lauren Kirchner   May 19, 2011 at 06:00 AM

Last week, CJR released a new report by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Tow Center for... More

Audit Notes: McKenna on Lowenstein; U.S., Island Rogue; Stat of the Day

By Ryan Chittum   May 18, 2011 at 06:32 PM

Francine McKenna over at Forbes takes a swing at Roger Lowenstein's "Wall Street: Not Guilty" piece (see my take... More

WaPo Has a Lesson For You

Journalists steer the course in new online classes

By Joel Meares   May 18, 2011 at 04:14 PM

Newspapers have been getting into some rather non-newspapery businesses of late: from the now-ubiquitous wine clubs to The New York... More

Challenging Newt’s Medicare Walkback

Choice is the least of Medicare’s problems

By Trudy Lieberman   May 18, 2011 at 03:58 PM

Poor Newt Gingrich! What a beating he’s taken since he said on Meet the Press Sunday that Paul Ryan’s scheme... More

Raising Money, Lowering Expectations

National Journal gets managed

By Liz Cox Barrett   May 18, 2011 at 02:51 PM

Of what value to readers is a story yesterday about what President Obama’s reelection team says it expects it will,... More

WaPo Short-Arms a Promising Piece on Factory Jobs

By Ryan Chittum   May 18, 2011 at 12:25 PM

The Washington Post gives us an interesting but blurry snapshot of the economy, looking at how the news about manufacturing,... More

Q&A: David Plotz, Editor of Slate, on Aggregation

“It was never simply an act of summarizing.”

By Lauren Kirchner   May 18, 2011 at 01:23 AM

Last week, CJR released a new report by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Tow Center for... More

Two Tone Deaf Defenses of Strauss-Kahn

By Joel Meares   May 17, 2011 at 04:08 PM

There has, admittedly, been a sort of assumption of guilt from the media in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair—the brutal... More

Lowenstein Lets Wall Street Off the Hook

Not so fast.

By Ryan Chittum   May 17, 2011 at 02:37 PM

Roger Lowenstein has a big piece out in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, an apology for Wall Street—duly celebrated by The New York... More

Candidate Pawlenty and Social Security

What’s he really talking about?

By Trudy Lieberman   May 17, 2011 at 01:41 PM

Not long ago, presidential aspirant Tim Pawlenty sat down with reporters from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for a heart-to-heart about his... More

Tabloid City and the Contours of Emptiness

Pete Hamill’s new novel explores a city in decline

By Jennifer Miller   May 17, 2011 at 01:32 PM

Tabloid City | by Pete Hamill | Little, Brown and Company | 288 pages, $26.99 In the opening pages of... More

Sorkin and The Fiscal Times on Taxing the Rich

By Felix Salmon   May 17, 2011 at 01:01 PM

Andrew Ross Sorkin gives credence — but doesn’t directly link to — Karen Hube’s rather offensive analysis of what it... More

Graduation Time

What should we tell journalism’s next generation?

By The Editors   May 17, 2011 at 12:44 PM

It’s graduation season and journalism schools across the country are spitting out classes of elated and exhausted journalists into the... More

L.A. Times Breaks Schwarzenegger Love Child Story

As restrained a sex-scandal story as you’re likely to get

By Joel Meares   May 17, 2011 at 12:29 PM

A busy two weeks for political sex scandals, first with John Ensign, then Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and now… Arnie. The... More

The Big, and Little, Mortgage-Fraud News

By Felix Salmon   May 17, 2011 at 11:14 AM

Shahien Nasiripour had a very important scoop yesterday—a set of confidential federal audits has found a pattern of mortgage fraud... More

Q&A: Douglas Arthur on Paywalls

“People spend hundreds of dollars on Amazon without thinking twice about it.”

By Lauren Kirchner   May 17, 2011 at 06:00 AM

Last week, CJR released a new report by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Tow Center for... More

Audit Notes: WSJ on Selling Access, Wall Street-Style; Yanked; Small Paywalls

By Ryan Chittum   May 16, 2011 at 08:25 PM

The Wall Street Journal has a very good page-one story on how Wall Street gives hedge funds access to key... More

A Medicare Referendum? Not So Fast

Polls in N.Y. special election tell a more complicated story

By Greg Marx   May 16, 2011 at 03:52 PM

The future of Medicare is one of the biggest, most fiercely contested questions in American politics these days. And with... More

Out of the Museum

“Curate” gets a new life

By Merrill Perlman   May 16, 2011 at 03:30 PM

Thirty years ago, the only people who were “curators” worked in galleries or museums, deciding what pieces from the presumably... More

Columbia J-School launches The New York World

By Joel Meares   May 16, 2011 at 03:11 PM

Lots of hubbub today at the Columbia University Journalism building in which we CJR staffers toil away. Not only do... More

NYT On Why Journalists Like to Compare Presidents

Did anybody think to ask journalists?

By Joel Meares   May 16, 2011 at 02:37 PM

The New York Times’s Peter Baker had a piece in Sunday’s paper dealing with an issue close to many hearts... More

Why Law and Journalism Schools Need to Work Together

To give reporters the legal assistance they need

By Craig A. Newman   May 16, 2011 at 12:05 PM

It began with a phone call asking for help. A reporter friend in New York needed to see some sealed... More

Q&A: Evan Ratliff of The Atavist

“I don’t really care whether attention spans are getting shorter.”

By Lauren Kirchner   May 16, 2011 at 10:30 AM

Last week, CJR released a new report by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Tow Center for... More

Audit Notes: WSJ’s Deceptive Edits, NYT Glows for Bharara, Cohan Glowers

By Ryan Chittum   May 13, 2011 at 07:50 PM

Jon Chait and Kevin Drum team up for a nifty demolition of that Wall Street Journal editorial page deception I... More

Romney on Romneycare is a Bust

Conservatives are not buying Mitt’s Michigan speech

By Joel Meares   May 13, 2011 at 02:57 PM

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took to a stage in Ann Arbor yesterday to twist and turn his way through... More

Romney and His Health Care Plan

Does he or doesn’t he like what he did?

By Trudy Lieberman   May 13, 2011 at 02:26 PM

It would seem that the press coverage of Mitt Romney’s health care speech in Michigan yesterday was greater than media... More

Now It’s the NYT’s Turn to Take On Trump Inc.

By Ryan Chittum   May 13, 2011 at 11:28 AM

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times took a good look at Donald Trump's business empire and how he built it... More

Notes on Faked Photos

Bin Laden’s death shows the possibilities for manipulation are endless

By Craig Silverman   May 13, 2011 at 11:00 AM

Consider three images from the last couple of weeks: 1. President Barack Obama finishes his address announcing the killing of... More

A Watershed Moment for the Chesapeake Bay Journal

On its 20th anniversary, the paper is growing and remolding its image

By Curtis Brainard   May 13, 2011 at 10:00 AM

The current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review features a short article about the twentieth anniversary of the Chesapeake Bay... More

Q&A: Andrea Miller of YourTango

“Gaming mechanics will become the next interesting frenzy around media.”

By Lauren Kirchner   May 13, 2011 at 01:33 AM

As a supplement Chapter Three of “The Story So Far: What we know about the business of journalism,” released this... More

Audit Notes: Slick Politics, Greece’s Red Flag, What Caused Oil’s Tumble?

By Ryan Chittum   May 12, 2011 at 08:35 PM

I noted a Huffington Post story the other day reporting that removing drilling bans wouldn't really affect the price of... More

Bin Laden Unnerved by al Qaeda Magazine

By Joel Meares   May 12, 2011 at 03:29 PM

ProPublica’s Sebastian Rotella has spoken to “two U.S. officials familiar with material seized during the raid that killed bin Laden”... More

Reporting from the Right

Heritage Foundation aims to fill left-right coverage gap

By Ben Adler   May 12, 2011 at 03:23 PM

In the domestic Cold War a reporting gap has developed: a number of left-leaning web sites such as The Huffington... More

An FCC Commissioner’s Brazen Dash Through the Revolving Door

Buried by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News

By Ryan Chittum   May 12, 2011 at 01:33 PM

The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News show some terrible news judgment today, burying news that FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell... More

Australian Media CEO’s Embarrassing Memo Mistake

Confirming eighty-two firings with “track changes” in place

By Joel Meares   May 12, 2011 at 11:04 AM

What could be more embarrassing to a reporter than the incident from a couple of months ago when The Washington... More

Too Big To Fail, The Movie

By Felix Salmon   May 12, 2011 at 08:41 AM

Over the weekend I watched the HBO movie version of Too Big To Fail, and I talked to Andrew... More

Q&A: Walker Evans of Columbus Underground

“We try to shape our editorial calendar around our audience”

By Lauren Kirchner   May 12, 2011 at 01:00 AM

This week, CJR released a new report by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Tow Center for... More

Microsoft-Skype Gets Bubble-Era Hype from the Times (UPDATED)

The Journal and FT bring much-needed skepticism about the deal

By Ryan Chittum   May 11, 2011 at 08:22 PM

The New York Times goes A1 with a breathless second-day story that shows some of the perils of deal reporting.... More

A 60 Percent Osama Bump?

New approval rating raises a flap

By Joel Meares   May 11, 2011 at 03:54 PM

An interesting debate about polling samples is underway this afternoon in the wake of a very encouraging new set of... More

The Secret Money “Seduction”

Democrats get their Priorities in order for 2012

By Liz Cox Barrett   May 11, 2011 at 03:41 PM

The Center for Responsive Politics recently published an analysis of the effects of last year's Citizens United Supreme Court decision... More

L.A. Times Examines Trump’s Gold-Plated Corporate Welfare

By Ryan Chittum   May 11, 2011 at 02:49 PM

How do you handle covering a candidacy that's primarily a publicity stunt by a crazed ego and presshound—one with approximately... More

“The Story So Far” Panel with Ken Auletta

By Lauren Kirchner   May 11, 2011 at 01:30 PM

Ken Auletta introduced Tuesday night’s panel discussion at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism by saying “We’re going to... More

Morning Joe Puts Madoff on the Couch

By Joel Meares   May 11, 2011 at 12:53 PM

My colleague Curtis Brainard has written about the media’s inclination to offer loose psychological evaluations of high profile meltdown types... More

A Mining Disaster Follow-up Follows the Money

L.A. Times’s revealing report on inaction after the WV coal mine explosion

By Joel Meares   May 11, 2011 at 11:49 AM

A belated laurel to the Los Angeles Times team of Kim Geiger, Tom Hamburger, and Doug Smith, of the paper’s... More

Q&A: Bill Grueskin and Lucas Graves on the Changing Business of News

“Philanthropic or government support can’t fund journalism in the way that we’re used to.”

By Lauren Kirchner   May 11, 2011 at 01:00 AM

This week, CJR released a new report by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the Tow Center for... More

Audit Notes: “People Love It,” The New Nocera, NYT Parody Flop

By Ryan Chittum   May 10, 2011 at 09:05 PM

Andrew Ross Sorkin has a good column on a panel of top financiers discussing financial reform and too big to... More

Race to the Bottom

A Times story illustrates a peril that is a virtue to some

By Ryan Chittum   May 10, 2011 at 04:08 PM

The New York Times gave this piece as big a play as you'll see a non-news story get yesterday, going... More

In Singapore, Social Media Aids Another Political Shift

By Shibani Mahtani   May 10, 2011 at 04:05 PM

This past weekend was a historic one for Singapore, the small southeast Asian city-state that often escapes the attention of... More

An Economic Case for More Women in Global Journalism

Gender inequality isn’t just a social issue

By Justin D. Martin and Dalia Abbas   May 10, 2011 at 01:35 PM

CAIRO—In the last decade, gender rights advocates have, to notable success, made the argument that welcoming women into workforces and... More

Which News Sites Are Best at Engaging their Readers?

And which ones are only interested in fly-by clicks?

By The Editors   May 10, 2011 at 01:09 PM

In the conclusion to the report published on CJR today, “The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business... More

Bill Grueskin and Lucas Graves on the Changing Business of News: A CJR Podcast

By The Editors   May 10, 2011 at 10:30 AM

Why is it that The New York Times has more than 30 million online readers and a weekday circulation of... More

The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism

A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 10:00 AM

The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism (PDF) Introduction Chapter One News From... More

Introduction

The story so far: what we know about the business of digital journalism

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:13 AM

Few news organizations can match the setting of The Miami Herald. The paper’s headquarters is perched on the edge... More

Chapter One: News From Everywhere

The economics of digital journalism

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:12 AM

In early 2005, a researcher at the Poynter Institute published a column that was instantaneously read and—by many—misunderstood. Rick... More

Chapter Two: Traffic Patterns

Why big audiences aren’t always profitable

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:11 AM

At first glance, the numbers don’t seem to add up: The New York Times has more than 30 million... More

Chapter Three: Local and Niche Sites

The advantages of being small

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:10 AM

TBD.com went out with a whimper, not a bang. In February 2011, just six months after going live, the... More

Chapter Four: The New New Media

Mobile, video, and other emerging platforms

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:09 AM

News organizations can be forgiven for feeling that they’re in an endless cycle of Whac-A-Mole. They’ve had fifteen years... More

Chapter Five: Paywalls

The price tag for information

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:08 AM

“Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has... More

Chapter Six: Aggregation

‘Shameless’—and essential

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:07 AM

A group of middle school students at Brooklyn’s Urban Assembly Academy of Arts and Letters got a special treat... More

Chapter Seven: Dollars and Dimes

The new costs of doing business

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:06 AM

Journalism is expensive and good journalism especially so, but the newsroom usually is not the costliest part of running... More

Chapter Eight: New Users, New Revenue

Alternative ways to make money

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:06 AM

“The basic point about the Web is that it is not an advertising medium, the Web is not a... More

Chapter Nine: Managing Digital

Audience, data, and dollars

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:05 AM

Although all digital news organizations live in a brutally competitive environment, some companies do much better than others because... More

Conclusion

Lessons, takeaways, and bullet points

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:04 AM

"Here’s the problem: Journalists just don’t understand their business.” That’s the diagnosis from Randall Rothenberg, a former New York Times... More

Executive Summary

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:03 AM

Chapter One News From Everywhere: The Economics of Digital Journalism Large-scale competitive and economic forces are confronting news organizations, old... More

Acknowledgements and Credits

For “The Story So Far: What We Know About the Business of Digital Journalism”

By Bill Grueskin, Ava Seave, and Lucas Graves   May 10, 2011 at 12:02 AM

Acknowledgements We owe a great debt to many people who contributed to this report. While we can’t name them all... More

How Smaller Gets Bigger

By Jan Schaffer   May 10, 2011 at 12:02 AM

"The future of journalism will be a tale of smaller and smaller organizations making a bigger and bigger impact," asserts... More

Diving Down into “The Story So Far”

And coming up with the parts you need to read

By Felix Salmon   May 10, 2011 at 12:02 AM

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, in its worthy manner, has come out with a 146-page report entitled "The... More

Stop Chasing Fly-By News Consumers

And get to know your core audience

By Staci Kramer   May 10, 2011 at 12:02 AM

Watching the Mississippi River spill deeper into downtown Memphis than it has in my lifetime, I went in search of... More

What to Do Before “Returning a Reporter’s Phone Call”

By Liz Cox Barrett   May 9, 2011 at 04:41 PM

From a Bloomberg profile today of Michele Bachmann (headline: “Bachmann Rocks ‘Ruling Class’ With Amens From Tea Party, Presidential Talk”):... More

Failure to Launch

Adding “ing” makes a noun, or not

By Merrill Perlman   May 9, 2011 at 02:55 PM

When the “launch” of the space shuttle Endeavor finally occurs, many “posts” will appear on blogs and news sites around... More

The AP Takes the Public’s Pulse

Covering Medicare, part four

By Trudy Lieberman   May 9, 2011 at 02:33 PM

Perhaps no other health issue is as important to so many Americans now and in the future as Medicare. In... More

U.S. Oil Is Limited and Fungible, the HuffPost Reports

By Ryan Chittum   May 9, 2011 at 12:40 PM

The Huffington Post's Michael McAuliff has a good piece of reporting on the potential impact of a bill the House... More

Tina, Tina Everywhere

By Joel Meares   May 9, 2011 at 12:13 PM

Peter Stevenson’s 5,000-word New York Times magazine profile of wunderkind “editrix” Tina Brown is a well-written, well-reported, breezy-enough read. It’s... More

New Media Goes Door to Door in the Deep South

After a year and a half, Birmingham news site Weld is cleared for launch

By Michael Meyer   May 9, 2011 at 10:57 AM

I first encountered Weld in September 2010, and it remains the only site I’m aware of that was given an... More

The Smith Rules

Sam Smith covers the Chicago Bulls—for the Bulls

By Daniel Libit   May 9, 2011 at 06:00 AM

Sam Smith says he’s living out the “ultimate journalistic fantasy” after leaving the news business. The former Chicago Tribune... More

Audit Notes: UBS Fraud, Stevie Cohen, Bankers 4 Liz Warren!

By Ryan Chittum   May 6, 2011 at 04:30 PM

So a giant Swiss bank defrauds American taxpayers. It bid-rigs the muni-bond derivatives market. It pays kickbacks and bribes. The... More

Science Blogs “Win a Place at the Table”

Zimmer and Yong on the evolution of online science coverage

By Curtis Brainard   May 6, 2011 at 01:00 PM

According to “techy historians,” there were around twenty-three blogs in 1998. As of mid-February, there were 156 million, Phil Hilts,... More

And We’re Off!

First debate low on candidates, substance, & attention

By Clint Hendler   May 6, 2011 at 12:35 PM

The first debate of the 2012 presidential season took place last night in Greenville, South Carolina. If you missed it,... More

“Obama Osama bin Laden Is Dead”

The Osama/Obama error is an international phenomenon

By Craig Silverman   May 6, 2011 at 12:18 PM

Of all the mistaken headlines, verbal gaffes, and erroneous tweets that resulted from the Sunday announcement that Osama Bin Laden... More

Murdoch’s Hacking Scandal

Two stories cover the political, police, and press angles on the News Corp. coverup

By Ryan Chittum   May 6, 2011 at 09:49 AM

If you haven't followed the growing scandal at Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, it's worth sitting down with Sarah Ellison's piece... More

The Paper Chase

For tabloid king Emile Gauvreau, it took a lifetime to slow down

By Michael Shapiro   May 6, 2011 at 09:00 AM

Years later, when he recounted the events that would lead to his becoming the most sensational, shameless, ambitious, and... More

Audit Notes: CEO Porn; Ryan Avent on Paul Ryan; Sbarro, Cooked

By Ryan Chittum   May 5, 2011 at 09:08 PM

Gary Weiss says the tarnishing of Warren Buffett is a useful moment for the press to stand back and quit... More

Old-School Journal Leder Spotted in the Wild

The paper finds greenwashing in the jungle by Estée Lauder

By Ryan Chittum   May 5, 2011 at 02:19 PM

The Wall Street Journal has a superb page-one story today about greenwashing—the reality behind an American company's marketing of an... More

COIN Stars

Counterinsurgency bloggers help set the Afghanistan agenda

By Maura R. O'Connor   May 5, 2011 at 12:59 PM

When Erik Smith accepted a one-year posting to Afghanistan as a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) official working... More

Lawrence Pintak on the Arab Media Revolution: A CJR Podcast

By The Editors   May 5, 2011 at 10:30 AM

“Autocratic Arab governments have long controlled news and information with an iron hand, writes Lawrence Pintak in the cover story... More

A Tight Deadline, 4,000 Words, Then Ten Years of Waiting

A Q&A with Kate Zernike, Osama bin Laden’s obituarist for the NYT

By Lauren Kirchner   May 5, 2011 at 10:26 AM

When the news of Osama bin Laden’s death broke on Sunday night, every night editor’s dream—or nightmare—came true at The... More

How State-Funded TV Stations Covered the Osama News

A look at Russia Today, Press TV, France 24, and others

By Linette Lopez   May 5, 2011 at 10:05 AM

Around the world, state-funded satellite TV stations—like Russia Today (RT), Iran’s Press TV, China’s CCTV, France 24 and Al Jazeera—are... More

English Lesson

The moment has arrived for Al Jazeera English, except in the US

By Lawrence Pintak   May 5, 2011 at 08:30 AM

[This is a sidebar article to the May/June 2011 cover story, "Breathing Room: Toward a new Arab media," which you... More

Breathing Room

Toward a new Arab media

By Lawrence Pintak   May 5, 2011 at 08:30 AM

Before there was Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or even Al Jazeera, there was Hama, Syria. It was 1982 and an... More

Audit Notes: Globalization and Corporate Crime, Capital Gains, Auto Correct

By Ryan Chittum   May 4, 2011 at 07:23 PM

— Columbia's Jeffrey Sachs is riled up these days. He has an interesting piece on how and why corporate crime... More

A Photo of History Being Made (Up)?

Spot the presidential address reenactment photo!

By Liz Cox Barrett   May 4, 2011 at 06:07 PM

One of the images below is of President Obama delivering his historic "justice has been done" address live to the... More

The Regulators on the Bus

A Times story shows the resources gap between regulators and Wall Street

By Ryan Chittum   May 4, 2011 at 12:28 PM

We've wondered often just what it is that makes our financial regulators so toothless in the wake of the widespread... More

Single Sourcing on a Medicare Story at NPR

Covering Medicare, part three

By Trudy Lieberman   May 4, 2011 at 12:23 PM

Perhaps no other health issue is as important to so many Americans now and in the future as Medicare. In... More

Anybody There?

Why the UK’s phone-hacking scandal met media silence

By Archie Bland   May 4, 2011 at 08:45 AM

On Thursday, July 7, James Murdoch announced that, in the wake of the paper's escalating phone-hacking scandal, the 168-year-old... More

Audit Notes: Levin-Coburn Referrals; Falling Dollar, Rising Exports; Amazon Watch

By Ryan Chittum   May 3, 2011 at 08:12 PM

Bloomberg reports that Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn have formally referred their bipartisan investigation of the financial crisis, and... More

Where Did You Get Your bin Laden News?

And now, where do you go for analysis?

By The Editors   May 3, 2011 at 03:52 PM

Sometimes the news is so big you just have to have the details right away, and the death of Osama... More

NYT Interactive Graph Plots Readers’ Feelings About Bin Laden

By Lauren Kirchner   May 3, 2011 at 02:55 PM

Much like New York magazine’s “Approval Matrix,” which plots pop culture happenings on matrices of “highbrow” to “low” and “brilliant”... More

Lucky Duckies Waddle Onto the WSJ News Pages

The poor and lower middle class pay federal taxes, too

By Ryan Chittum   May 3, 2011 at 02:53 PM

The Wall Street Journal has a poor story today reporting that "High-Earning Households Pay Growing Share of Taxes." The paper's... More

Red Alert on the Green Beat

Violence and threats severely restrain environmental coverage in much of the world

By James Fahn   May 3, 2011 at 08:45 AM

In 2007, Cherelle Jackson started publishing a three-part series of investigative reports that examined plans to develop tourism on an... More

Covering Obama’s Secret War

When drones strike, key questions go unasked and unanswered

By Tara McKelvey   May 3, 2011 at 08:30 AM

In the spring of 2009, New York Times reporter David Rohde was being held captive by Taliban gunmen in a... More

Too Big to Fail: New Jersey Mall Edition

Chris Christie can’t let Xanadu go under; $400 million in corporate welfare

By Ryan Chittum   May 2, 2011 at 07:50 PM

What corporate interest won't Chris Christie subsidize with taxpayer dollars? The New Jersey governor, press favorite, and conservative hero is... More

“I Am Not Reporting Anything to You”

How Fox News, CNN handled the initial Bin Laden news

By Liz Cox Barrett   May 2, 2011 at 06:04 PM

In the event that you were not watching cable news last night, rest assured that Fox News’s Geraldo Rivera and... More

Osama bin Laden, 54, Public Enemy No. 1

A review of the obits

By Lauren Kirchner   May 2, 2011 at 05:10 PM

Osama bin Laden was the world’s most powerful terrorist. He was also, undeniably, the most famous. And as befits any... More

Hyphen-ation

A little mark can make a big difference

By Merrill Perlman   May 2, 2011 at 03:52 PM

During the recent gathering of the American Copy Editors Society, a lot of “hyphen” jokes made the rounds. One was... More

Sunday Night Screenshots

How the news websites did bin Laden

By Lauren Kirchner   May 2, 2011 at 01:25 PM

This Monday morning, the headlines practically wrote themselves, and there was no question about which story would get top billing.... More

Coverage of New Chernobyl Analysis Fails Risk Reporting Basics

Includes absolute risk, but not relative

By David Ropeik   May 2, 2011 at 12:24 PM

The nuclear crisis in Japan keeps on revealing how the news media struggle to report accurately and thoroughly about risk.... More

WSJ Notes That Commodities Go Down, Too

By Ryan Chittum   May 2, 2011 at 12:11 PM

The business press is much more sensitive to signs of price increases than it is to signs of price decreases.... More

International News Sites Cover bin Laden’s Death

At varying decibels

By Justin D. Martin   May 2, 2011 at 11:39 AM

CAIRO—One of the benefits of teaching outside the U.S. is that I get to work with polyglot students. In my... More

“The Guy Who Liveblogged the Osama Raid Without Knowing It”

By Lauren Kirchner   May 2, 2011 at 11:35 AM

This may be the strangest way to become Twitter-famous. Sohaib Athar, a computer programmer living in Pakistan, live-tweeted the US... More

Kudos to Remapping Debate

A refreshing take on a long-legged health reform story

By Trudy Lieberman   May 2, 2011 at 09:59 AM

James Lardner deserves a loud shout-out for his piece about the movement—somewhat dormant until now—to make patients into consumers, meaning... More

True Enough

The second age of PR

By John Sullivan   May 2, 2011 at 06:00 AM

The Gulf oil spill was 2010’s biggest story, so when David Barstow walked into a Houston hotel for last... More

Opening Shot

Attacks on reporters and photographers in the Arab world threaten journalism everywhere

By The Editors   May 1, 2011 at 02:13 PM

Is journalism worth dying for? Murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s editor used those words as the title of a posthumously... More

Bishops agree sex abuse rules

Headlines that editors probably wish they could take back

By The Editors   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

Girls Think Tank Has Emerged as Key Voice for Human Rights — The San Diego Union-Tribune 1/3/11 Padres pitcher Latos... More

How to Dow

Careless coverage of the Dow Jones Industrial Average can mislead readers

By Michael Schudson and Julia Sonnevend   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

Stock-market indices offer an alluring impression of rigor and certainty. But what do they really mean? The University of Michigan... More

Headless Body in Newspaper War

Paul Collins’s new history brings a gaudy death to life

By Kevin Baker   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Spaked The Tabloid Wars | By Paul... More

Brief Encounters

Short reviews of new books about war correspondents Roi Ottley and Byron Darnton

By James Boylan   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

Roi Ottley’s World War II: The Lost Diary of an African American Journalist | Edited with an introduction by Mark... More

The Family Owner Rises Again

A tradition of hewing to basics pays off

By Bret J. Schulte   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

The Seaton family had spent four generations weaving a daisy chain of newspapers across the small towns of the... More

Important News

Some “most important” notes on adverbs

By Merrill Perlman   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

Writers, rejoice! it’s perfectly acceptable to tell people what’s most important by saying “most importantly….” Many people were taught that... More

Hard Numbers

Some stats and figures on the news industry

By The Editors   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

30 percent of visitors to local news and information websites that live outside the site’s market 25 percent of visitors... More

Freed Press

Upheaval in a Tunisian newsroom is all for the better

By Jabeen Bhatti   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

Watching the upheaval in her home region from a Tunis newsroom in late December, Assabah reporter Rim Saoudi became frustrated.... More

Paying Off

The problem of bribes in the Liberian press

By Emily Schmall   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

After two civil wars, Liberian journalists are enjoying unprecedented freedoms but struggling to maintain independence. The business of news is... More

Tide Change at Bay Journal

The Chesapeake Bay Journal celebrates twenty years of educating readers about the bay

By Curtis Brainard   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

The twentieth anniversary of the Chesapeake Bay Journal marks a watershed moment for a publication that knows something about watersheds.... More

Editor’s Note

News about an upcoming web series on digital journalism, “The Story So Far”

By Mike Hoyt   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

This is a full issue and, we hope you agree, a good one. we invite you to read every word,... More

Notes from Our Online Readers

Readers weigh in on who should fill the slot on the New York Times op-ed page

By The Editors   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

With the recent departures of Frank Rich and Bob Herbert from the New York Times’s opinion pages, and a new... More

Letters to the Editor

Readers respond to our March/April cover story by LynNell Hancock, “Tested”

By The Editors   May 1, 2011 at 08:00 AM

Grading Teachers LynNell Hancock’s article, “Tested: Covering schools in the age of micro-measurement” (CJR, March/April), gives a thoughtful and thorough... More