Unknown Quantities

How social network verification can show us what we don’t know

By Craig Silverman   Sep 30, 2011 at 12:35 PM

We don’t know. Those are three difficult words for a journalist to say. For many, it's an admission of failure.... More

Ensuring Independence

How university journalism centers establish boundaries

By Alysia Santo   Sep 30, 2011 at 12:16 PM

An office. Desks, chairs, Internet, phone. Maybe even a printer. More and more, universities are providing these organizational basics to... More

Business Insider and Over-Aggregation

By Felix Salmon   Sep 30, 2011 at 09:32 AM

Henry Blodget has a long and detailed response to Marco Arment, which is fascinating to anybody interested in the nuts... More

Is Occupy Wall Street Getting Its Fair Share of Press?

What would Charles Tilly say?

By Erika Fry   Sep 29, 2011 at 04:46 PM

#Occupy Wall Street. To cover or not to cover? That is of course the question that, 13 days into the... More

TNR Highlights Perry’s ‘Crony Capitalist’ Past

Will his indifference to ideology present a primary problem?

By Greg Marx   Sep 29, 2011 at 04:12 PM

Former Washington Post reporter Alec MacGillis, who has joined The New Republic to cover the 2012 campaign, has his first... More

Norm Ornstein Gets Congress; WaPo Doesn’t

Result of Republican FEMA brinksmanship described as ‘almost accidental’

By Greg Marx   Sep 29, 2011 at 01:50 PM

Remember that New York Times story earlier this week on the (since-resolved) showdown over federal disaster aid—the one that misleadingly... More

What a Country

Two new efforts to make sense of America’s struggles

By Julia M. Klein   Sep 29, 2011 at 11:56 AM

In the midst of a cross-country pilgrimage, Iraq war veteran Colby Buzzell finds himself transfixed by an “old dusty American... More

Does This Mean the Iowa Caucuses Are Like eHarmony?

By Greg Marx   Sep 29, 2011 at 10:47 AM

Web headline on the lead campaign story in The New York Times today: “Romney Waits as G.O.P. Flirts with Alternates.”... More

What Wadah Khanfar Did For Al Jazeera…

And what the sudden departure of the network’s managing director might mean for its future

By William Stebbins   Sep 28, 2011 at 12:54 PM

From the very first moment I joined Al Jazeera in 2005 to lead the launch of the English channel’s Washington... More

Jonathan Raban Takes the Scenic Route

A review of Driving Home, the essayist’s latest collection

By Phil Campbell   Sep 28, 2011 at 12:18 PM

Driving Home: An American Journey | By Jonathan Raban | Pantheon Books | 496 pp, $29.95 It’s a shame that... More

Skeptical of Science

Among other new roles, journalists becoming more critical of research

By Declan Fahy   Sep 28, 2011 at 10:05 AM

The recent coverage of the subatomic particles found to have travelled faster than the speed of light—tentative evidence that could... More

A Frustrating AP Series on Nuclear Safety

The industry’s blunder-buss response doesn’t help; public left confused

By Irene M. Wielawski   Sep 28, 2011 at 01:40 AM

Editor's note: This is an installment of our Audit Arbiter series, which looks into complaints about business news stories.... More

Audit Notes: The Costs of Trade, WSJ Op-Ed Page, Frontier Days

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 27, 2011 at 07:53 PM

The Wall Street Journal covers an MIT study that found the downsides of trade with China have been worse than... More

How Not to Cover Your Paper’s New Owner

The Oklahoman glosses over Philip Anschutz’s political activism

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 27, 2011 at 06:34 PM

The Oklahoman recently profiled Philip Anschutz, who bought the paper from the Gaylord family, which had owned it for 108... More

Obama Campaign Shows Fundraising “Strength”?

Reuters, AP (and NYT) offer differing takes

By Liz Cox Barrett   Sep 27, 2011 at 04:51 PM

Should Team Obama be feeling optimistic or concerned about its fundraising prospects this election cycle? That depends. It depends, of... More

Count the Chris Christie Headlines…

By Liz Cox Barrett   Sep 27, 2011 at 03:38 PM

…appearing on Politico’s home page right now (here's a screen shot): I spy these four highly informative headlines: "Christie Still... More

HuffPost Goes Deep On Google

Too deep, in fact. Arianna, how about hiring an editor?

By Greg Marx   Sep 27, 2011 at 03:26 PM

The Huffington Post trio of Ryan Grim, Zach Carter, and Paul Blumenthal dropped their 6,800-word take on “Google, Microsoft, and... More

A Times Conflict of Interest Resolved

By The Editors   Sep 27, 2011 at 02:21 PM

In 2009, Ethan Bronner, who has run the Jerusalem bureau for The New York Times since March 2008, joined the... More

60 Minutes, Meet the AP

Scott Pelley’s paean to Ray Kelly’s anti-terrorism juggernaut ignores the wire’s good work

By Erika Fry   Sep 27, 2011 at 01:46 PM

On Sunday, 60 Minutes broadcast this fifteen-minute report, “Fighting terrorism in New York City,” in which CBS’s Scott Pelley delivers... More

Boom Towns Amid the Bust

NPR finds “man camps” and $1,200 parking spaces in North Dakota

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 27, 2011 at 12:20 PM

This paragraph jumps out from an NPR's All Things Considered report on an oil boom town in North Dakota: Two... More

The Cheap Seats

Joe Bageant told uncomfortable truths about class in America

By Sasha Abramsky   Sep 27, 2011 at 06:00 AM

In the last decade of his life, Joe Bageant came full circle. He and his third wife, Barbara, were... More

LAT On Why Solyndra Dazzled the Private and Public Sectors

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 26, 2011 at 06:23 PM

The Los Angeles Times has a really good look at the failure of Solyndra, the solar-power company that went bankrupt... More

‘Congress’ Not to Blame for FEMA Feud

New York Times channels misplaced ‘pox-on-both-their-houses’ anger

By Greg Marx   Sep 26, 2011 at 03:23 PM

A memo to reporters who write about federal policy disputes: “Congress” is not an actor. “Congress” has no mind. “Congress”... More

Meet the Bay State’s Uninsured

The national media pass on an important story

By Trudy Lieberman   Sep 26, 2011 at 02:26 PM

Last week the Census Bureau released new numbers showing that 5.6 percent of the population in Massachusetts remained without health... More

NYTimes Misleads on Pace of Flood Relief

FEMA’s disaster delays are structural, not Congressional

By Erika Fry   Sep 26, 2011 at 02:04 PM

Congress: dysfunctional, broken, mad, maybe even the worst. Ever. But The New York Times went one too far today in... More

Unequal Rights

All synonyms are not the same

By Merrill Perlman   Sep 26, 2011 at 12:03 PM

Strunk and White’s Elements of Style counsels to avoid euphemism, and, as we wrote on the book’s fiftieth anniversary,... More

The Morning Call’s Amazon Sweatshop Probe

An excellent investigation exposes poor conditions at a big Pennsylvania warehouse

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 23, 2011 at 07:52 PM

What's going on with labor in Pennsylvania? It was just last month that foreign students working at Hershey's for the... More

After the Google/Fox Debate, Five Annoyances

Dog poop jokes and that blasted chat chime at GOP debate suggest Google’s not that smart

By Erika Fry   Sep 23, 2011 at 04:09 PM

Some things irritated us about last night’s debate and the post-debate wrap-up. Some were small—say, the use of the Gmail... More

ProPublica Shines a Light on Secret Gerrymandering Money

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 23, 2011 at 01:48 PM

Every ten years, politicians get together in statehouses and redraw congressional districts to squeeze their opponents and entrench themselves in... More

Keeping an Eye on Patient Safety, Part IV

Sac Bee catches nursing home lies

By Trudy Lieberman   Sep 23, 2011 at 11:31 AM

Slowly the public is coming to realize that health care institutions are not always safe places. Since the Institute of... More

Dear News Organizations: Stop Being Deadbeats

If you’ve promised to pay your freelancers, do it

By Justin D. Martin   Sep 23, 2011 at 10:58 AM

If I paid my bills as slowly as many news organizations pay their freelancers, I’d be homeless, have a deactivated... More

Nigeria’s New FOIA

Reporters enjoy new freedoms in a long-repressive society

By Elliot Ross   Sep 23, 2011 at 10:24 AM

Journalism in Nigeria has never been easy work, and the new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which finally became law... More

ESPN Obscures Its Own Role in the Conference Realignment Mess

The network’s $300 million deal with Texas, at the heart of the news, goes almost unmentioned

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 22, 2011 at 06:34 PM

If you cover college sports for ESPN, you've got a real problem right now. The biggest story these days is... More

The Countrywide Fraud Machine

Michael Hudson tallies up dozens of allegations that executives retaliated against whistleblowers

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 22, 2011 at 12:28 PM

The Center for Public Integrity's Michael Hudson, who's done as much as any journalist—both before and after the crash—to expose... More

Darts and Laurels

Telling the whole story about Thailand

By Erika Fry   Sep 22, 2011 at 06:00 AM

For much of his career, the British journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall has covered Southeast Asia for Thomson Reuters. During that... More

Audit Notes: Bloomberg Headlines, Bad Ad News, Wall Street Protests

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 21, 2011 at 06:53 PM

The Audit has a love-hate reading relationship with Bloomberg News's wacky headlines. Here are a few we've flagged over the... More

This Time Around, Little Traction for ‘Class Warfare’

By Greg Marx   Sep 21, 2011 at 04:51 PM

This bit of faint praise may reflect—to borrow a phrase—the soft bigotry of low expectations, but I’ll offer it anyway:... More

Failures of Vision

Errol Morris interrogates photography’s place in the public imagination

By Michael Meyer   Sep 21, 2011 at 02:01 PM

Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography | by Errol Morris | The Penguin Press | 336 pages,... More

Sound Off

How audience reaction distorts political debates

By Erika Fry   Sep 21, 2011 at 11:20 AM

Ah, another week, another gimmick-ridden Republican debate. Tomorrow’s, in Orlando, is billed as the Fox News/Google debate and is held... More

Profiling Paint Creek

CBS News, NYT point the way

By Liz Cox Barrett   Sep 21, 2011 at 10:48 AM

So, you’re a member of the national media tasked with heading to west Texas to capture for your non-west Texas... More

The SEC’s Madoff Mess Gets Worse

The commission’s former top lawyer faces a possible criminal conflict of interest investigation

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 20, 2011 at 07:33 PM

Louise Story and Gretchen Morgenson report that the SEC's inspector general is referring the David M. Becker case to the... More

Some Context With Your David Brooks

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 20, 2011 at 02:46 PM

Obama's pitch to make the ultrarich pay as high a tax rate as their secretaries sent David Brooks into spasms... More

The Glass-Half-Full Beat

Exploring the positive news niche

By Alysia Santo   Sep 20, 2011 at 02:26 PM

Plenty of people claim that they don’t pay attention to the news because it’s too depressing. The sentiment is certainly... More

Passing Interference

As politicians find new ways to connect with voters, journalists need a fresh playbook

By Greg Marx   Sep 20, 2011 at 10:44 AM

At the Poynter site last week, Jason Fry had a sharp post about a major change reshaping the sports journalism... More

The Long Tale

New homes for stories that fall between a book and an article

By Alissa Quart   Sep 20, 2011 at 06:00 AM

When author Jon Krakauer started looking into the altruistic claims of his former friend, the best-selling author of Three... More

Audit Notes: Economic Headwinds, Refinancing, Google’s Dominance

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 19, 2011 at 07:25 PM

Crain's New York Business's Aaron Elstein takes a good look anecdotes at the headwinds New York's economy is facing from... More

On priorities and presidents

By Erika Fry   Sep 19, 2011 at 05:09 PM

If you tuned into one of the Sunday morning talk shows yesterday—that most coveted of political press spots, conveying what... More

Q&A: New NBC Correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin

“Part of me wants to speak to the global audience, and a part of me wants to speak to America”

By Dave Marash   Sep 19, 2011 at 04:02 PM

This spring, just before he turned thirty-two, Ayman Mohyeldin’s contract with Al Jazeera was ending and he was faced with... More

The AP Puts Faces on the Poverty Numbers

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 19, 2011 at 02:59 PM

The Associated Press fans out across the country to put faces on the poverty numbers released last week. Needless to... More

None of the Above

Plural or singular? Yes.

By Merrill Perlman   Sep 19, 2011 at 02:12 PM

How many of you were taught that “none” stands for “no one,” and must always take a singular verb? Bet... More

“The National Media” and Perry

By Liz Cox Barrett   Sep 19, 2011 at 01:33 PM

Some interesting bits from Politico’s recent piece on "the hunger for information" about Rick Perry and how “the Texas press... More

Perry Misleads on RomneyCare

Socialized medicine, really?

By Trudy Lieberman   Sep 19, 2011 at 01:08 PM

It's becoming clear that Rick Perry has never met a buzzword he doesn’t like. We’ve heard that Social Security is... More

Damning With Absurd Praise

By Brent Cunningham   Sep 19, 2011 at 10:15 AM

Check out the comments in Adweek by Gannett’s new chief marketing officer about the company’s flagship newspaper, USA Today. Maryam... More

Audit Notes: Scotland Yard Thugs, Reuters Raises Its Sights, An NYT Miss

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 16, 2011 at 04:18 PM

It looks like they ought to just shut Scotland Yard down and start over from scratch. The Metropolitan Police is... More

Reporting on Solyndra

Missing basic concepts about the government’s loan-guarantee program.

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 16, 2011 at 03:24 PM

Much of the press coverage of the Solyndra bankruptcy has been poor on some basic concepts at the heart of... More

Witnessing Somalia

By Greg Marx   Sep 16, 2011 at 02:57 PM

Just a quick note: Jeffrey Gettleman's New York Times article from yesterday on famine in Somalia merits an appreciation. It's... More

Eight Simple Rules for Doing Accurate Journalism

Some new, some old, some wonderfully clichéd

By Craig Silverman   Sep 16, 2011 at 12:23 PM

It’s a cliché to say clichés exist for a reason. As journalists, we’re supposed to avoid them like the, um,... More

Fletch (1985)

Getting the story, one quip at a time

By Alysia Santo   Sep 16, 2011 at 11:41 AM

Irwin Fletcher, Fletch to his friends, is an investigative reporter for a Los Angeles newspaper. He writes his columns under... More

Ron Suskind on Obama’s Weakness

A new book reports Geithner ignored the president on overhauling Citigroup

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 16, 2011 at 12:53 AM

It's been apparent for a good while that Obama is a weak president. But so weak that his own people... More

Audit Notes: Bloomberg’s Euphemisms, ETFs and CDOs, TechCrunch and Goldman

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 15, 2011 at 07:36 PM

It's sort of darkly amusing to read all the euphemisms in this Bloomberg News story reporting on the latest warnings... More

Palin’s Basketball Diaries

By Erika Fry   Sep 15, 2011 at 05:54 PM

Yes, we've been reviewing the media's coverage of social security and health care and the jobs plan, but we've also... More

Parsing Perry’s ‘Ponzi’ Claim

By Greg Marx   Sep 15, 2011 at 11:49 AM

My short post last week on the failure of a CBS News story to assess the accuracy of Rick Perry’s... More

CJR Rewind: Hot Air

Why don’t TV weathermen believe in climate change?

By Charles Homans   Sep 15, 2011 at 11:24 AM

This story, which recently won a Science in Society award from the National Association of Science Writers, originally ran in... More

Size Matters

News Corp.’s corruption would matter less if it weren’t so big

By The Editors   Sep 15, 2011 at 06:00 AM

In the August 8 issue of New York magazine, the columnist Frank Rich suggests this takeaway from the News... More

Framing the Jobs Plan… Er, Second Stimulus

This time Democrats get that language matters, and the press plays along

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 15, 2011 at 12:39 AM

Barack Obama proposed his second stimulus last week, pitching a $450 billion measure. Or is it a jobs plan? Let's... More

Bloomberg Versus Reuters on Obama Polls

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 14, 2011 at 05:15 PM

Correlation is not causation. That's a hard lesson to internalize for the press, which insists on slapping a narrative on... More

Transparency Watch: A Closed Door

From the EPA to NASA, the FDA to OSHA, President Obama has failed to make science accessible

By Curtis Brainard   Sep 14, 2011 at 01:44 PM

In July 2009, just months after President Obama took office promising to revolutionize government transparency, leaders of the Society of... More

Tracing the Roots of Modern Conservatism

Remembering the legacies of Thomas Dewey and Robert Taft

By Jordan Michael Smith   Sep 14, 2011 at 12:09 PM

The Roots of Modern Conservatism: Dewey, Taft, and the Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party | By Michael... More

Conflict in Israel?

A problematic speaking deal at The New York Times

By Max Blumenthal   Sep 14, 2011 at 12:02 PM

Running the Jerusalem bureau for The New York Times is a tough job in a hypersensitive area, one that attracts... More

Deep Health Care Problems under Rick Perry’s Watch

Deep in the heart of Texas

By Trudy Lieberman   Sep 14, 2011 at 12:01 PM

With the media hyper-focused on Texas governor Rick Perry’s not-too-flattering comments about Social Security, health care in his state seems... More

Adventures With E-books, Kindle Single Edition

By Felix Salmon   Sep 14, 2011 at 10:28 AM

Ryan Avent’s 90-page Kindle single, The Gated City, is a bargain at $1.99. It was produced in close consultation with... More

Audit Notes: College Sports, NY AG Probing Lehman Execs, Shale Drilling

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 13, 2011 at 07:46 PM

— Taylor Branch's cover story in the new Atlantic is a devastating indictment of the NCAA, a must-read for anyone... More

Starving for Coverage

Unlike the 1980s, journalists pay little attention to famine ravaging the Horn of Africa

By James Fahn   Sep 13, 2011 at 03:40 PM

What a difference a generation makes. Back in 1984-85, groundbreaking media coverage of the terrible drought and famine that affected... More

Standout 9/11 Coverage

In the sea of anniversary coverage, where to look?

By The Editors   Sep 13, 2011 at 03:21 PM

In the tremendous swell of tenth anniversary of 9/11 news coverage and commentary—in print, broadcast, online, on Twitter—what has stood... More

Urgent Call

Cell phones help a marginalized Indian community speak out

By Chitrangada Choudhury   Sep 13, 2011 at 12:39 PM

On the evening of May 16, 2010, Vijjobai Talami, the headwoman of Gumiapal village, phoned CGNet Swara, a fledgling mobile... More

Rhetorical Differences

Drew Westen misses the constraints on Obama’s presidential oratory

By Greg Marx   Sep 13, 2011 at 11:04 AM

About five weeks ago, the psychology professor Drew Westen published a very long and not very persuasive essay in The... More

Wealth Over Work

The Washington Post excels; Indiviglio misses the point

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 13, 2011 at 09:32 AM

Press friends, if there's one thing that shows how our system is set up to favor capital over labor, wealth... More

Best Business Writing, 2012: Send Us Your Favorites

By Dean Starkman   Sep 12, 2011 at 04:41 PM

Hey, Internet: A team at the Columbia Journalism Review—yours truly, Dean Starkman, Ryan Chittum, Martha Hamilton, ex-of the WaPo and... More

Procter & Gamble and the Hollowing Out of the U.S. Economy

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 12, 2011 at 01:55 PM

It's always nice to see a paragraph like this on the front page of the country's biggest paper: In the... More

Forget That Ponzi Scheme Stuff

It’s the tax holiday, stupid

By Trudy Lieberman   Sep 12, 2011 at 01:22 PM

At the end of August, Nebraska senator Ben Nelson, a Democrat up for reelection next year, told members of the... More

Bodily Functions

The scent of a language

By Merrill Perlman   Sep 12, 2011 at 01:00 PM

The scene may have been a long coach ride or a London park bench on a hot day, but the... More

The Scandal Beat

Does the press’s obsession with rule-breaking get in the way of real reform of college sports?

By Daniel Libit   Sep 12, 2011 at 12:00 PM

In December, Ohio State University suspended five of its football players for violating the rules governing intercollegiate athletics by... More

Audit Notes: The 14th Century, Gilded China, The Second Stimulus

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 9, 2011 at 08:45 PM

Treasury bonds yields hit another low today, dropping to 1.917 percent for ten-year bonds. You might even say markets are... More

The Business Press’s Favorite Talking Head

Mark Zandi on speed dial

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 9, 2011 at 06:57 PM

My first reaction to this Bloomberg article was to write this on the Twitter: hey, whaddya know, Mark Zandi is... More

CJR Rewind: Back to the Future

September 11th and the future of journalism

By Andie Tucher   Sep 9, 2011 at 02:14 PM

This article, by Andie Tucher, ran in our November 2001 issue. Back in August, when I agreed to write a... More

CJR Rewind: What I Saw On 9-11

“I wanted to record everything.”

By Nicholas Spangler   Sep 9, 2011 at 02:07 PM

Ten years ago, on September 11, 2001, Nicholas Spangler was a journalism student covering a primary election in downtown New... More

Calling Out a Source that Lied

The Memphis Commercial Appeal holds Schnucks accountable

By Craig Silverman   Sep 9, 2011 at 01:19 PM

As far as official denials go, it was clear and emphatic. Lori Willis, communications director of the Schnucks grocery chain,... More

Call Northside 777 (1948)

Real journalism is too boring for the movies

By Brent Cunningham   Sep 9, 2011 at 11:34 AM

In an early scene of the 1948 film Call Northside 777, Jimmy Stewart, who plays a reporter at the Chicago... More

Audit Notes: Social Security and Ponzi, Regulation, Hamster Wheel

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 8, 2011 at 08:58 PM

The Wall Street Journal's Laura Meckler has a nice rebuttal to Rick Perry's false claim in last night's Republican debate... More

The Other Rogue

By Justin Peters   Sep 8, 2011 at 05:28 PM

Is Joe McGinniss a jerk? Sarah Palin certainly thinks so: she didn't like it when McGinniss rented the Wasilla house... More

Shouldn’t All Stories be ‘Fact-Check’ Stories?

By Greg Marx   Sep 8, 2011 at 04:55 PM

On the subject of fact-checking the presidential debates, it’s worth noting that while the proliferation of “fact-check” stories over the... More

Diverse Concerns

The unfortunate messages sent by Telemundo’s debate treatment

By Erika Fry   Sep 8, 2011 at 04:55 PM

Among the stranger moments of the MSNBC-Politico debate last night was the brief cameo of a Spanish-language journalist—the “Brian Williams... More

FHFA Suits Try to Hold Individual Execs Accountable

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 8, 2011 at 04:37 PM

Jonathan Stempel of Reuters points out something that the press has all but ignored about the Federal Housing Finance Agency's... More

An Inflated Claim

After Republican debate, facts needed on monetary policy

By Greg Marx   Sep 8, 2011 at 04:33 PM

Last night was debate night for the Republican presidential contenders, which means today is “fact-check” day for the political press.... More

Poking Holes in the Massachusetts Mantra

The part of the story that the Times didn’t tell

By Trudy Lieberman   Sep 8, 2011 at 03:51 PM

Sunday’s New York Times piece comparing the records of GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Jon Huntsman on... More

Q&A: Beware the Gonzo Director Bryan Goluboff

“We want a talisman of these times, even in a digital age.”

By Jennifer Miller   Sep 8, 2011 at 12:08 PM

Beware the Gonzo, the directorial debut of Bryan Goluboff (writer of The Basketball Diaries), stars Ezra Miller, Zoe Kravitz, Amy... More

SolveClimate Goes Inside

How an environmental news startup found its way to investigative reporting

By Alysia Santo   Sep 8, 2011 at 10:58 AM

After experimenting with a variety of quick-hit approaches to environmental coverage, a four-year-old online news startup focused on climate change... More

Fade to Black

As a video revolution sweeps the world, US television news caps its lens

By Dave Marash   Sep 8, 2011 at 06:00 AM

For the first time in history, mankind is developing a universal language: video. People now communicate with video on... More

Audit Notes: Detroit Foreclosures, Soros on the Euro Crisis, NYT on Stimulus

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 7, 2011 at 07:28 PM

The Detroit News reports that some homeowners in the city are letting their houses go into foreclosure over unpaid tax... More

A Heavy Blow to The Wall Street Journal

An editor’s departure is a big deal

By Dean Starkman   Sep 7, 2011 at 06:47 PM

Anyone who thinks the departure of Alix M. Freedman, the WSJ’s Page One editor, a twenty-seven-year Journal mainstay, and winner... More

American Banker Shows DOJ Sat On a Bank-Kickback Scandal

HUD says big banks got $6 billion, but the attorney general does nothing

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 7, 2011 at 02:52 PM

American Banker has really been doing some superb stuff lately. Jeff Horwitz has a big scoop in today's paper, reporting... More

Ham-fisted Racism at Fox Sports

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 7, 2011 at 02:05 PM

So Fox Sports hired a comedian to go to the USC campus and make fun of "All American" Asian students... More

Talking Back

‘Revert’ gains a new meaning

By Merrill Perlman   Sep 6, 2011 at 03:56 PM

The recruiter was pleased that the law firm was interested in one of his clients. “I will revert with candidate... More

A More Than Marginally Embarrassing Mistake

USA Weekend caught flatfooted on tax goof

By Greg Marx   Sep 6, 2011 at 03:45 PM

See update at bottom of this post. I don’t want to encroach too far onto Craig Silverman’s territory, but USA... More

What Might an ‘American World Service’ Look Like?

Building on Lee Bollinger’s call for a BBC-like service from the United States

By Justin D. Martin   Sep 6, 2011 at 02:40 PM

It is time for the US to follow the example of other modern democracies and provide citizens with a government-supported,... More

Amazon’s California Tax Battle

Fighting to delay the end of its unfair advantage

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 6, 2011 at 02:37 PM

While billionaire Jeff Bezos is off crashing spaceships (or wannabe spaceships, anyway) in the West Texas desert, his company's unfair... More

Rate Regulation Blow-up in California

WellPoint and co. win again

By Trudy Lieberman   Sep 6, 2011 at 12:58 PM

The big news in health reform last week was the insurance industry’s victory in the California legislature, which scotched any... More

In Defense of (the Right Kind of) Horse Race Journalism

When primaries decide party priorities, voters should be brought in on the conversation

By Greg Marx   Sep 6, 2011 at 11:18 AM

Horse race journalism has a bad reputation among press critics. The NYU professor Jay Rosen, in a recent talk on... More

News Literacy Expands to DC

Project now serves 2,000 students

By The Editors   Sep 6, 2011 at 11:17 AM

For three years, The News Literacy Project has been helping middle- and high-school students in Chicago, New York City, and... More

Fuzzy Kittens, Fuzzier Science

Claims of hypoallergenic cats continue to go unchallenged by press

By Jonah Comstock   Sep 6, 2011 at 11:00 AM

In October 2008, Mike Sela, a lifelong sufferer of cat allergies, discovered a company called Allerca Lifestyle Pets. According to... More

Audit Notes: FHFA Suits, Corporate Taxes, SEC Out of Step

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 2, 2011 at 07:57 PM

I've just skimmed through some of the Federal Housing Finance Agency's huge lawsuits against seventeen big banks, but it was... More

Escape From Thailand

A simple story about plagiarism forced me to flee a country I love

By Erika Fry   Sep 2, 2011 at 03:31 PM

Editors’ Note: this is a companion piece to the Darts & Laurels column that appears in the September/October 2011 issues... More

Fannie’s Regulator Isn’t Playing Obama Team Ball

Suing the banks rather than protecting them

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 2, 2011 at 02:22 PM

The New York Times scoop that Fannie and Freddie's regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is suing the big banks... More

Escape From Thailand

A simple story about plagiarism forced me to flee a country I love

By Erika Fry   Sep 2, 2011 at 02:17 PM

Editors’ Note: this is a companion piece to the Darts & Laurels column that appears in the September/October 2011 issue... More

Errors in Anytown, U.S.A.

Academic brings an anonymous newsroom’s corrections practices to light

By Craig Silverman   Sep 2, 2011 at 12:59 PM

Last spring, Kirstie Hettinga spent several months working two days a week as an unpaid intern at what she will... More

Haven Bound

A Q&A with Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jónsdóttir

By Alysia Santo   Sep 2, 2011 at 11:00 AM

In 2008, Iceland was hit hard by the global financial crisis. Citizen outrage and political unrest followed, sparking a... More

Why the Sun Set on Solyndra

How the bad news about green jobs could be better

By Curtis Brainard   Sep 2, 2011 at 08:00 AM

With Labor Day on the horizon, it was another grim week in green-job news, as a solar panel manufacturer in... More

The Wall Street Journal and the Waffle House

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 1, 2011 at 08:17 PM

The Wall Street Journal has a terrific ahed today on the Waffle House and how the company goes all out... More

The Parallax View (1974)

(Sometimes) Good Guys Finish Last: Pakula’s sober counterpoint to All The President’s Men

By Erika Fry   Sep 1, 2011 at 06:09 PM

It’s the Fourth of July in Seattle. We’re on the scene with Lee Carter, a young television reporter, who is... More

They Killed Classifieds, Didn’t They?

Consider TimeOut New York, in comic format

By Ted Rall   Sep 1, 2011 at 03:04 PM

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Along Recession Road

Meet some of the people who are falling out of the American middle class

By Dale Maharidge   Sep 1, 2011 at 02:25 PM

To earn rent money, a laid-off single mother in Moulton, Alabama, has a yard sale. She parts with the bed... More

The Foreclosure Scandal Continues (UPDATED)

American Banker and Reuters show banks thumbing their nose at the law

By Ryan Chittum   Sep 1, 2011 at 01:41 PM

It's clear that the banks aren't much chastened by the foreclosure scandal that erupted last fall and which threatens to... More

Golden Teeth

Dallas’s WFAA shows crooked Medicaid spending on orthodontia

By Trudy Lieberman   Sep 1, 2011 at 01:17 PM

These days it’s rare for local TV stations to produce anything resembling an expose. With their steady diet of crime,... More