Author Archive
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Currents
Have at it
September 19, 2012 10:47 AMFor years, Nik Kowsar managed to stay out of jail while building a reputation as Iran’s most infamous political cartoonist. Then, in early 2000, his luck ran out. He was arrested for publishing a cartoon that depicted a... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Homicide Watch revs back up
September 11, 2012 12:32 PMCollege students who want to learn crime reporting, 21st-century style, from two pioneers of the genre should get their résumés to laura@homicidewatch.org pronto. That would be Laura Amico, of course, who with her husband, Chris, built Homicide Watch DC... Continue reading
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Cover Story
Murder Inc.
September 5, 2012 12:00 AMLaura Norton Amico spent the summer trying to find a newsroom in Washington, DC, to take over Homicide Watch, the crime-news site that she and her husband, Chris, built from inchoate idea to startup sensation. Two... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Required skimming: food politics and policy
August 31, 2012 06:50 AMThis month, CJR presents “Required Skimming,” a daily miniguide to our staffers’ beats and obsessions, ranging from finance to food. If we overlooked any of your must-read destinations, please tell us in the comments. • Barry Estabrook’s Politics... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Required skimming: sports
August 1, 2012 06:50 AMThis month, CJR presents “Required Skimming,” a daily miniguide to our staffers' beats and obsessions, ranging from finance to food. If we overlooked any of your must-read destinations, please tell us in the comments. • Mike Tanier’s Walkthrough... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Heresy on the bayou (updated)
June 13, 2012 10:43 AMMore than the news that it would no longer publish every day; more than the rumor that those left in the newsroom will be compensated, in part, based on the traffic their stories generate; more than the dismay of learning... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Who you calling ‘working-class’?
May 8, 2012 10:36 AMAttention all political reporters and editors. If you don’t know about the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State, in Ohio, I urge you to bookmark its blog (Working-Class Perspectives) and check it frequently as the primary campaign unfolds. Below... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Thank you, Mr. Trillin …
May 7, 2012 11:53 AMEasily the smartest thing connected with The New York Times Magazine’s tedious essay contest on the ethics of eating meat came not within the confines of the contest itself, but in Public Editor Art Brisbane’s column about the... Continue reading
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The Kicker
NYT’s hockey series gets Dart Award
May 4, 2012 10:16 AMThe NYT’s series on the life and death of hockey enforcer Derek Boogaard won a Dart Award last night (WNYC’s excellent “Living 9/11” documentary also won). John Branch and company’s multimedia report, which was published in December, was... Continue reading
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Currents
Acronyms You Should Know
March 21, 2012 06:00 AMEven as interest in all things food-related skyrockets, space devoted to serious food issues continues to lose out to the gastroporn of hot restaurants and hotter chefs. So last year, a group of fed-up food writers launched... Continue reading
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Feature
Sustained Outrage
November 28, 2011 10:00 AMSince he began reporting full-time, in 1991, Ken Ward Jr. has embodied the credo of Ned Chilton III, The Charleston Gazette’s late publisher, that the “hallmark of crusading journalism is sustained outrage.” In his twenty years covering... Continue reading
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Darts and Laurels
Darts and Laurels
November 2, 2011 09:00 AMAn accounting of fifty years’ worth of Darts is hardly a balm for an industry careening through a wrenching transition. It is a concentrated dose of every journalistic sin imaginable, and some that defy imagination: plagiarism, laziness, racism, sexism, homophobia,... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Damning With Absurd Praise
September 19, 2011 10:15 AMCheck out the comments in Adweek by Gannett’s new chief marketing officer about the company’s flagship newspaper, USA Today. Maryam Banikarim says that the paper was “never trying to compete with The New York Times or The Wall Street... Continue reading
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Critical Eye
Call Northside 777 (1948)
September 9, 2011 11:34 AMIn an early scene of the 1948 film Call Northside 777, Jimmy Stewart, who plays a reporter at the Chicago Times, interviews a scrubwoman who placed a classified ad (how quaint!) in the paper offering a $5,000 reward for information... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Q & A: CJR Cover Artist Tomer Hanuka
May 18, 2010 09:59 AMDeveloping a cover illustration can be a simultaneously maddening and infinitely satisfying experience. You must divine the central idea of your cover story, explain it to the artist, and wait anxiously to see what the alchemy of that process... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Food Fighter
May 4, 2010 08:00 AMIn 2004, Tom Philpott quit his job as a financial journalist in New York City and moved with his girlfriend and her sister to take over their father’s farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Today, Maverick Farms... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
A Compulsion To Know
April 21, 2010 10:58 AMOn the occasion of Mark Leibovich's New York Times Magazine profile of Politico's Mike Allen, CJR is happy to offer you this take on Allen as originally published in our July/August 2000 issue. Like Leibovich's effort, it shows... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Tunku’s Silly Lists
February 18, 2010 02:12 PMTunku Varadarajan’s lists in The Daily Beast of the top twenty-five “most influential journalists” on the right and on the left say a lot about what’s wrong with journalism today. For starters, there are very few actual... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Head Cases
January 5, 2010 08:00 AMIn 2007 The New York Times hired Alan Schwarz largely on the basis of his initial freelance reporting for the paper on the problem of head injuries in professional football. Since then, Schwarz’s persistent coverage has helped make the issue—which... Continue reading
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Short Takes
All Together Now (I)
October 6, 2009 08:44 PMNot long ago, Kevin Murphy was simply the president of the Berks County Community Foundation in Reading, Pennsylvania, a city of about 80,000 an hour northwest of Philadelphia. Like most community foundations, Murphy’s manages a range of charitable funds for... Continue reading
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Desks
The Audit Business
- Audit Notes: pyramid people, Disney and ABC, no USA Today paywall Roddy Boyd digs into a diet-shake pyramid scheme
- Hot air Rises Above on CNBC An anchor pins a minor dip in stocks on the TV appearance of a minor politician
The Observatory Science
- Dull news from Doha UN climate summit a ho-hum affair for the press
- Highway to the danger zone Following Sandy, HuffPo and NYT dig into the folly of coastal development
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- NBC News sets good example for Medicare reporting People perspective leads to clear explanation of impact of proposed changes
- In Pennsylvania, a niche site with wide reach PoliticsPA drives political conversation in Keystone State
Behind the News The Media
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The Kicker last updated: Fri 3:00 PM
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- Tom Rosenstiel leaving Pew
The Future of Media
News Startups Guide last updated: Thu 10:24 AM
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