Author Archive
Articles by Brent Cunningham | Email the Author
Class warriors
Creators of the late Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University discuss class in America
By Brent Cunningham Mar 1, 2013 at 12:00 AM
In 1996, Sherry Linkon and John Russo led the effort to create the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown... More
You’ve got shale!
Brian Cohen and the Marcellus Shale Documentary Project
By Brent Cunningham Jan 2, 2013 at 12:00 AM
The story of Janet McIntyre, the woman in the photo above, embodies many of the reasons why Brian Cohen... More
Must-reads of 2012: food
Have your cake and read it too
By Brent Cunningham Dec 24, 2012 at 06:50 AM
As 2012 draws to a close, CJR writers brainstormed the year's best reads in their beats. The history of chicken... More
Have at it
Can’t draw? No problem
By Brent Cunningham Sep 19, 2012 at 10:47 AM
For years, Nik Kowsar managed to stay out of jail while building a reputation as Iran’s most infamous political... More
Homicide Watch revs back up
Kickstarter cash in hand, the site will restart this fall as a student-reporting project
By Brent Cunningham Sep 11, 2012 at 12:32 PM
College students who want to learn crime reporting, 21st-century style, from two pioneers of the genre should get their résumés... More
Murder Inc.
A crime-news website tells the story of every DC homicide
By Brent Cunningham Sep 5, 2012 at 12:00 AM
Laura Norton Amico spent the summer trying to find a newsroom in Washington, DC, to take over Homicide Watch,... More
Required skimming: food politics and policy
If you believe you are what you eat, you’ll want to read these
By Brent Cunningham Aug 31, 2012 at 06:50 AM
This month, CJR presents “Required Skimming,” a daily miniguide to our staffers’ beats and obsessions, ranging from finance to food.... More
Required skimming: sports
The Olympics pass through periodically, but obsessive sports coverage is forever
By Brent Cunningham Aug 1, 2012 at 06:50 AM
This month, CJR presents “Required Skimming,” a daily miniguide to our staffers' beats and obsessions, ranging from finance to food.... More
Heresy on the bayou (updated)
Times-Picayune drops its restaurant critic
By Brent Cunningham Jun 13, 2012 at 10:43 AM
More than the news that it would no longer publish every day; more than the rumor that those left in... More
Who you calling ‘working-class’?
Some things for the political press to think about as it covers Campaign 2012
By Brent Cunningham May 8, 2012 at 10:36 AM
Attention all political reporters and editors. If you don’t know about the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State, in... More
Thank you, Mr. Trillin …
for bringing some wit to the otherwise witless NYT Magazine’s ethics-of-eating-meat essay contest
By Brent Cunningham May 7, 2012 at 11:53 AM
Easily the smartest thing connected with The New York Times Magazine’s tedious essay contest on the ethics of eating meat... More
NYT’s hockey series gets Dart Award
Will it help to change the game?
By Brent Cunningham May 4, 2012 at 10:16 AM
The NYT’s series on the life and death of hockey enforcer Derek Boogaard won a Dart Award last night (WNYC’s... More
Acronyms You Should Know
FERN: The Food & Environment Reporting Network
By Brent Cunningham Mar 21, 2012 at 06:00 AM
Even as interest in all things food-related skyrockets, space devoted to serious food issues continues to lose out to... More
Sustained Outrage
Ken Ward Jr. stayed home to make a difference
By Brent Cunningham Nov 28, 2011 at 10:00 AM
Since he began reporting full-time, in 1991, Ken Ward Jr. has embodied the credo of Ned Chilton III, The... More
Darts and Laurels
An exercise in humility: fifty years of journalism’s lesser angels
By Brent Cunningham Nov 2, 2011 at 09:00 AM
An accounting of fifty years’ worth of Darts is hardly a balm for an industry careening through a wrenching transition.... 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
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
Q & A: CJR Cover Artist Tomer Hanuka
We talk with the illustrator behind the May/June ‘10 cover image
By Brent Cunningham May 18, 2010 at 09:59 AM
Developing a cover illustration can be a simultaneously maddening and infinitely satisfying experience. You must divine the central idea of... More
Food Fighter
Grist’s Tom Philpott on why class needs to be a part of the food debate
By Brent Cunningham May 4, 2010 at 08:00 AM
In 2004, Tom Philpott quit his job as a financial journalist in New York City and moved with his girlfriend... More
A Compulsion To Know
CJR’s 2000 profile of Mike Allen
By Brent Cunningham Apr 21, 2010 at 10:58 AM
On the occasion of Mark Leibovich's New York Times Magazine profile of Politico's Mike Allen, CJR is happy to offer... More
Woman’s work - The twisted reality of an Italian freelancer in Syria
Sourcing Trayvon Martin ‘photos’ from stormfront - Not a good idea, Business Insider
Elizabeth Warren, the antidote to CNBC - The senator schools the talking heads on bank regulation
Art Laffer + PR blitz = press failure - The media types up the retail lobby’s propaganda
Reuters’s global warming about-face - A survey shows the newswire ran 50 percent fewer stories on climate change after hiring a “skeptic”
Barack Obama: ‘those old times aren’t coming back’
“It used to be there were local newspapers everywhere. If you wanted to be a journalist, you could really make a good living working for your hometown paper”
The Guardian’s editor opens up on Reddit
Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian, answered questions in an Ask Me Anything
The (almost) lost speech of Justice Anthony Kennedy
How his insightful remarks about the Constitution inadvertently make the case for a Supreme Court “media pool”
Fox News sues TVEyes for copyright infringement
Says subscription service sells access to its content without permission nor compensation
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
ACEsTooHigh.com – Reporting on the science, education, and policy surrounding childhood trauma
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.









