http://www.cjr.org/ en Copyright 2009 Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:57:35 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=3.2 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Lisa Anderson By now, members of the national press have descended on Fort Hood, Texas to tell the story of the worst soldier-on-soldier massacre in U.S. military history. Their job will be fraught with professional and emotional pitfalls. One of the biggest, and the one that poses the greatest potential danger at this point, concerns the “why” of the rampage that left... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_dangers_of_disaster_report.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_dangers_of_disaster_report.php Behind the News Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:57:35 -0500 Megan Garber Journalism and curation—it’s becoming increasingly difficult to determine where the one ends and the other begins. The chicken/egg relationship between the two solidified into conventional wisdom during the aftermath of the Iranian election this summer, when journalists—mostly impeded from shoe-leather reporting and other, more traditional methods of newsgathering—were forced to play the role of social-media editors. In the... http://www.cjr.org/the_news_frontier/fort_hood_a_first_test_for_twi.php http://www.cjr.org/the_news_frontier/fort_hood_a_first_test_for_twi.php The News Frontier Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:14:53 -0500 Jordan Michael Smith Thirty years ago today, Iranian students invaded the United States embassy in Tehran and captured seventy-one American diplomats, keeping fifty-three of them hostage for 444 days. The Iranian hostage crisis, as it came to be known, was a watershed moment in U.S. history. All at once, it symbolized the haplessness of the Carter administration; the hostility to the U.S. in... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/contra_iran.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/contra_iran.php Behind the News Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:22:17 -0500 Megan Garber Steven Waldman, veteran journalist and co-founder of Beliefnet, has been tapped by the FCC to lead an agency-wide initiative designed "to assess the state of media in these challenging economic times and make recommendations designed to ensure a vibrant media landscape." Waldman announced the move to his readers in a Beliefnet blog entry yesterday afternoon.... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/fcc_taps_waldman_to_study_stat.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/fcc_taps_waldman_to_study_stat.php Behind the News Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:14:52 -0500 Richard Benfield The sixty-third annual convention of editorial writers could hardly have met at a worse time. Only a few days earlier, many of the papers represented carried stories saying that despite some positive signs in the rest of the economy, the downturn for newspapers had yet to hit bottom. The Pew Research Center for People and the Press had released... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/not_here_this_year.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/not_here_this_year.php Behind the News Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:56:36 -0500 Justin Peters Kery Murakami, reluctant news entrepreneur, is the founder of the Seattle PostGlobe, a nonprofit Web startup that provides reported news for the Seattle area. He is also the site’s primary reporter, editor, art director, accountant, copy chief, IT troubleshooter, and press agent. “Six months ago I never thought I’d be here,” he says, somewhat wearily. “But this could... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/man_about_town.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/man_about_town.php Behind the News Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:31:50 -0500 Michael Massing Howard Kurtz scored a coup on his CNN show “Reliable Sources” two Sundays ago when White House communications director Anita Dunn came on to knuckle-rap Fox News, saying that the network often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party....That’s fine, but let’s not pretend they’re a news network the... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/howard_kurtz_missing_in_action.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/howard_kurtz_missing_in_action.php Behind the News Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:18:42 -0500 Greg Marx If you’ve been enjoying a weekend-induced news hiatus, you’ve missed some strange developments in the Washington Post “salon” story. Here’s what happened over the last two days: On Saturday, The New York Times published an odd “postscript” to its reporting noting that Marcus Brauchli, the Post’s executive editor, had known the proposed dinners were being promoted as “off... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/salon_saga_continues_at_the_po.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/salon_saga_continues_at_the_po.php Behind the News Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:51:30 -0500 Megan Garber So the bizarre, twist-and-turn-laden balloon "flight" of six-year-old Falcon Heene yesterday Captivated The Nation…by which we mean, of course, that it Captivated The Nation’s Media. The Balloon Boy story, with its irresistible mix of human drama and utter strangeness, will surely continue to enthrall us until some other bright, shiny thing takes our attention—and not only on the nation’s cable... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/balloon_boy_takes_flight_for_r.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/balloon_boy_takes_flight_for_r.php Behind the News Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:03:18 -0500 Megan Garber Every other year, The Associated Press holds a summit to analyze pressing issues facing the company—culminating in an executive strategy session in Lake Placid, N.Y. The most recent Lake Placid process focused on, per AP managing editor Kristin Gazlay, “two planks of enormous import to AP journalists—how our content gets used (and, painfully, does NOT get used), and how the... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_ap_intimations_of_politico.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_ap_intimations_of_politico.php Behind the News Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:39:41 -0500 Betwa Sharma On a scorching afternoon in Chitrakoot, a woman named Tabassum walks into a small, sticky government hospital and sits poised with her notebook listening to the doctor. A reporter for Khabar Lahariya, a weekly rural newspaper that reaches 400 villages, Tabassum is investigating a story based on reports that villagers suffering from tuberculosis are not being treated. “We don’t send... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/postcard_from_chitrakoot.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/postcard_from_chitrakoot.php Behind the News Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:42:43 -0500 Michael Massing David Finkel’s book The Good Soldiers, about the experiences of a US Army battalion during the surge in Iraq, is getting standout reviews. The Good Soldiers "captures the surreal horror of war,” Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times last week, comparing the book to Michael Herr's Dispatches. Finkel, she added, “does a vivid job of conveying... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/post_20.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/post_20.php Behind the News Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:05:24 -0500 Curtis Brainard An independent filmmaker accused the Society of Environmental Journalists of “protecting” Al Gore on Friday after the filmmaker’s mic was cut while challenging the former vice president to acknowledge alleged errors in the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Phelim McAleer, the co-director/producer of an independent film entitled Not Evil, Just Wrong, which purports to... http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/sej_accused_of_protecting_gore.php http://www.cjr.org/the_observatory/sej_accused_of_protecting_gore.php The Observatory Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:39:59 -0500 Craig Silverman Fact checking, along with its kissing cousin “calling bullshit,” is becoming one of the great American pastimes of the Internet age. We are in the midst of a blossoming of new forms of fact checking, particularly those that rely on crowdsourcing. This is a crucial addition to the discipline, because the traditional form of fact checking, which was primarily developed... http://www.cjr.org/regret_the_error/the_new_great_american_pastime.php http://www.cjr.org/regret_the_error/the_new_great_american_pastime.php Regret the Error Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:58:39 -0500 Michael Massing Which country is most routinely miscovered in the U.S. press? There are clearly many candidates, but for me one stands out: Mexico. My judgment has no doubt been affected by the fact that I spent a year in that country after graduating college, working as a reporter for the Mexico City News, a quirky English-language daily that was a magnet... http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_most_misreported_country.php http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_most_misreported_country.php Behind the News Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:37:14 -0500