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Articles by Curtis Brainard | Email the Author
Muller’s media circus
Did the press fall for a climate-change publicity stunt?
By Curtis Brainard Aug 6, 2012 at 12:00 PM
UC Berkeley physicist Richard Muller was all over the media last week talking about his “total turnaround” from global-warming skeptic... More
The bright-young-things hypothesis
Jonah Lehrer’s mistakes are not our fault
By Curtis Brainard Aug 1, 2012 at 05:30 PM
The downward spiral of Jonah Lehrer’s career over the last month has shocked his peers and instilled in them a... More
Lehrer resigns from The New Yorker
Tablet busts the writer for fabricating Bob Dylan quotes in his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works
By Curtis Brainard Jul 30, 2012 at 02:45 PM
Science writer Jonah Lehrer has resigned as a staff writer for The New Yorker following revelations that he made up... More
InsideClimate out front
Investigation of Kalamazoo oil spill calamity led the pack
By Curtis Brainard Jul 26, 2012 at 03:23 PM
In early July, the media covered a long awaited report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which blamed the... More
‘I don’t bluff’
Michael Mann’s lawyer says National Review must retract and apologize
By Curtis Brainard Jul 25, 2012 at 02:45 PM
Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann is demanding that National Review retract and apologize for a July 15 post that... More
Quest for science debate continues
15 top science organizations press Obama, Romney for answers
By Curtis Brainard Jul 23, 2012 at 03:15 PM
The quest for a scientific tête-à-tête between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney continues. On Thursday, 15 top science and engineering... More
ABC News: armchair psychologist
The network offers irresponsible speculation about the Colorado shooter
By Curtis Brainard Jul 20, 2012 at 05:30 PM
Here we go again. A gunman fires on an unsuspecting crowd and the American media leap to conclusions about the... More
The expectations game
Blogs drive MSM speculation about Higgs announcement
By Curtis Brainard Jul 3, 2012 at 03:00 PM
Excited speculation about the discovery of one of physics’ most sought-after particles is coming in waves now, with media outlets... More
Press war Down Under
A mining mogul’s battle with an Australian media group shakes the industry
By Curtis Brainard Jun 29, 2012 at 04:50 PM
Fairfax Limited, one of Australia’s largest media conglomerates, is at war with its largest individual shareholder, the world’s richest woman.... More
A fatal year
2012 on track to be the deadliest on record for journalists
By Curtis Brainard Jun 29, 2012 at 06:50 AM
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — With 72 journalists killed so far this year, 2012 is on pace to... More
Our polar backyard
Economist explores what a melting Arctic means to the world
By Curtis Brainard Jun 26, 2012 at 08:00 AM
The Arctic is not under-covered. Some might even say the opposite is true. The polar bear has been “the poster... More
“Prophet of Katrina” stays put
Times-Picayune’s ace environment reporter sticks with Nola Media Group
By Curtis Brainard Jun 22, 2012 at 06:50 AM
The man The New York Times called “a prophet of Katrina’s wrath” for his prescient coverage of New Orleans’ vulnerability... More
Gladwell makes excuses for Lehrer
Undefined “conventions of blogging” a weak defense
By Curtis Brainard Jun 21, 2012 at 03:00 PM
The media drama surrounding Jonah Lehrer continued Thursday with author Malcolm Gladwell offering a weak defense of his embattled colleague,... More
How creativity works? Not like that.
Science writer Jonah Lehrer accused of self-plagiarism
By Curtis Brainard Jun 20, 2012 at 10:45 AM
The author of a recent book about how creativity works is finding out the hard way that the answer is... More
Rio+20 roundup
Coverage of the UN sustainable development summit revs up, or not
By Curtis Brainard Jun 18, 2012 at 05:45 PM
Big, international summits geared toward protecting the environment and promoting sustainability just don’t have the cachet that they used to.... More
Adrift in a sea of (no) coverage
For two years, little in the news about battle over National Ocean Policy
By Curtis Brainard Jun 15, 2012 at 03:00 PM
Last October, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar called on the press to pay more attention to the Obama administration’s... More
Covering the animal within
Zoobiquity promotion belies activity in comparative medicine
By Curtis Brainard Jun 14, 2012 at 03:00 PM
The promo machine for an upcoming book, Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing,... More
NSF invests in literary science journalism
Creative nonfiction program seeks emerging writers
By Curtis Brainard Jun 8, 2012 at 03:00 PM
The National Science Foundation (NSF) doubled down on literary science journalism this year. Actually, it quintupled down. In 2010, NSF... More
An eye on environmental justice
EHN series focuses on an under-covered angle on toxics
By Curtis Brainard Jun 7, 2012 at 11:00 AM
A number of media reports in last year have examined the impacts of toxic pollution on communities, but few have... More
Salt Lake Tribune takes Grantham Prize
$75,000 award goes to series about threatened forests for second year in a row
By Curtis Brainard Jun 6, 2012 at 03:10 PM
For the second year in a row “the world’s richest journalism prize” went to a series of articles about threatened... More
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
Josh Barro, the loneliest Republican
What to make of the 28-year-old columnist’s contempt for the GOP—and its would-be reformers
Dowd and Fournier and countless others who have launched similar complaints are asking, “Why aren’t we getting what we were promised?”
Elizabeth Spiers on launching media brands
What do news publications need to do to adapt to digital? Any publication you see doing it really well?
Wolf Blitzer and other journalists should leave God out of natural disasters
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
