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Articles by Dean Starkman | Email the Author

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A new cross-border tax-haven database and its significance

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists pushes into new journalism territory

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists hit the mother lode when it published the first of its dozens of exposés... More

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Tide goes out on News Corp.’s newspapers

The Times of London newsroom cuts staff as its parent company splits in two

It's not a great sign that the Times of London is laying off 20 editorial staffers just as it parent... More

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Nonprofits are still a drop in the news bucket

And there isn’t a growth story

Yes, as Kira Goldenberg writes, the most remarkable finding of the big new Pew study on nonprofit news organizations... More

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‘The future is medieval’

A discussion with the scholars behind the “Gutenberg Parenthesis,” a sweeping theory of digital—and journalism—transformation

What follows is an interview and discussion I had in Odense, Denmark, with Thomas Pettitt and Lars Ole Sauerberg, two... More

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Official Secrets of the Financial Crisis

Huge public money changing hands in deals that remain undisclosed; part of a widening shroud over government

Jon Weil's column the other day was one you really did not want to miss and points to wider... More

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Those immobile newspaper companies

Only 22 percent of a big sample even offer mobile products

One of the truisms of digital journalism, and one that happens to be true, is that mobile is a big... More

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The importance of counting stories

Schiffrin and Fagan quantify weaknesses in coverage of the stimulus

One of the cold, hard facts of media punditry is that no one can read everything—or should be expected... More

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Wall Street Journal: time to look in the mirror

Its Pulitzer shutout reaches six years

Stop me if you've heard this one: Old man goes to shul, prays: "Dear God, just once, let me... More

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60 Minutes’s Chevron pollution story springs a leak

An on-camera expert recants in a court statement

Three years ago, we weighed in on a bitter media dispute pitting Chevron against 60 Minutes over a piece... More

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Newspaper revenue: good news, bad news

Mostly bad as revenue stops its free-fall but ads remain weak

The Newspaper Association of America takes some comfort, and with some reason, in the news that newspaper revenues declined... More

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Investigative collaboration, cross-border edition

A landmark series on offshore tax havens from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

A good sign that your investigation has hit the mark is when law enforcement agencies start demanding to see... More

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Advance to nowhere

Newhouse-owned chain slogs forward with discredited free-news model, now in Cleveland

Advance Publications's announcement today on the future of the Cleveland Plain Dealer was less dramatic than the one a year... More

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Digital ads and grains of salt

Assessing recent claims

Some data are better than no data, I suppose, but it always pays to be skeptical when companies disclose... More

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Three things to like about the Times OSHA exposé

And one thing not to like at all

Ian Urbina's magisterial probe in The New York Times of OSHA's failure to police long-term health risks—like harmful fumes caused... More

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The Rise of Longform Newspaper Writing, 1950s-2003

Fink and Schudson document the rise of “contexual journalism” before the longform meltdown.

Katherine Fink and Michael Schudson have a fantastic new paper called "The Rise of Contextual Journalism, 1950s-2003," to be... More

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Q&A with the FT’s Martin Dickson

A new US managing editor takes over at the salmon-colored financial daily

Martin Dickson came on as US managing editor of the Financial Times in September, succeeding Gillian Tett, who is on... More

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Longform meltdown (cont.)

Reaction to a post on the decline of longform stories at major papers

My post presenting data showing that major newspapers drastically cut back their longform story output in the last decade generated... More

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Major papers’ longform meltdown

Stories longer than 2,000 words down 86 percent at the LAT since 2003, 50 percent at WaPo, etc.

No one equates story-length with quality. Let’s start with that concession. But still. Story-length is hardly meaningless when you consider... More

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Native ads’ existential problem

L’affaire Atlantic/Scientology points up the format’s built-in problems for news

The Atlantic’s big mistake in the Scientololgy “debacle” has been variously described as: 1. Running an ad in the... More

Rolling Stone remembers Michael Hastings, dead at 33

The bold journalist died in a car accident in Los Angeles

Michael Hastings, remembered

On the journalistic value of being “a dick”

Michael Hastings has died

Buzzfeed’s statement on the death of its reporter

Have you seen this column?

The disappearance of ‘Sports of the Times’

CJR’s panel discussion on coverage of gay marriage

On the eve of two related SCOTUS decisions, how should journalists be covering the issue?

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A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

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