Author Archive
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Campaign Desk
Picking Apart the Polls
October 2, 2009 03:27 PMIf you’re an avid news reader, there’s a good chance that sometime in the last day or so you’ve come across a headline trumpeting an apparent decline in public support for abortion rights. But depending on the source you were... Continue reading
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The Kicker
‘Regional Experts’ Not Just Missing from Media
October 1, 2009 03:46 PMElsewhere on the CJR site today, Michael Massing concludes his take-down of the latest Iran-related coverage with a call for the media to pay more attention to “regional experts” like March Lynch of Foreign Policy and George Washington... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
The Whole World in His Hands
October 1, 2009 01:16 PMAs any middle-school social studies student knows, the American system of government consists of three branches: the executive branch, which enforces the laws; the judicial branch, which interprets the laws; and the legislative branch, which makes the laws. The political... Continue reading
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The Kicker
India and Pakistan, Best of Buddies
September 30, 2009 04:14 PMThe New York Times’s long, deeply-reported front-page story on the continuing strength of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant group responsible for last year’s deadly Mumbai bombings, runs up against a recurring journalistic dilemma: How do you provide comprehensive information... Continue reading
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The Kicker
David Brooks’s Afghanistan Straw Man
September 30, 2009 12:24 PMIn a Campaign Desk piece today, I talk about the reflexive hawkishness of various big-deal think tanks and op-ed columnists when it comes to American policy in Afghanistan. One particular David Brooks column—the most clear-throated call The New York... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
An Open Debate on the Afghan War?
September 30, 2009 12:23 PMExpert opinion in the foreign policy think-tank world—your American Enterprise Institutes, your Councils on Foreign Relations, etc.—runs, on balance, hawkish. The Iraq War debate provided ample evidence for this claim, and Les Gelb, the president emeritus of CFR, owned up... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Going for the Gold
September 29, 2009 02:43 PMOne of the persistent memes of American political journalism is that our president must always be testing his political power in some arena or other. In stories laden with words like “risk,” “gamble,” “hazard,” and “peril,” the Leader of the... Continue reading
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The Kicker
On the NYT’s opinion media monitor
September 28, 2009 02:31 PMAs noted by Michael Calderone and others, NYT ombudsman Clark Hoyt reported in his Sunday column that, in the wake of the Van Jones and ACORN stories, the paper’s top editors have decided to "assign an... Continue reading
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The News Frontier
Q & A: Jim Brady
September 25, 2009 04:27 PMNamed executive editor of washingtonpost.com in late 2004, Jim Brady presided over a near-doubling in Web traffic and saw the site win numerous awards during his four-year tenure. After the Post announced plans to integrate its print and... Continue reading
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The Kicker
You Mean Not Everybody Watches Cable News?
September 24, 2009 12:05 PMAs Ali notes below, for all the dust he’s kicked up lately, Glenn Beck still isn’t really a household name. (Another indication that the cover of Time doesn’t mean what it used to?) It’s not just Beck—over at... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Q & A: Rick Perlstein
September 22, 2009 05:52 PMAs the recent scandals surrounding the green-jobs advocate Van Jones and the community organizing group ACORN have shown, even under a Democratic White House and Congress, the conservative media have an ability to place a story on the national agenda.... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Driving the Conversation
September 21, 2009 10:50 AMThe New York Times has published a number of ambitious series this year, on topics ranging from the financial crisis fallout to the struggle to defeat cancer to settlers in the West Bank. But the series that's attracted more attention... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Seeds of Discontent
September 18, 2009 03:31 PMJames O’Keefe, the pimp-playing provocateur who set out to target ACORN with a video camera, a cheesy costume, and a small wad of cash, succeeded in doing more than embarrassing the community-organizing association. O’Keefe, 25, and his colleague Hannah Giles,... Continue reading
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Darts and Laurels
Darts and Laurels
September 17, 2009 09:42 AMIt was the kind of ethical dilemma that classroom case studies are made of, but the potential con- sequences of this decision were all too real: a deranged man kidnaps his ex-wife from a parking garage and holds... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Washington=Cool… Really?
September 16, 2009 01:11 PMI share Megan's amazement at Arianna Huffington's entrepreneurial abilities. But, despite our current president's rock-star appeal, I remain skeptical of this line in the Hollywood Reporter story she linked to earlier: "There is no better time... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Atlantic launches opinion aggregator site
September 16, 2009 11:51 AMLast night, The Atlantic officially launched its new aggregator site of opinion and analysis, The Atlantic Wire. You can see the site here and read the “About Us” page here; a Mediabistro write-up of the launch with... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Expert Takes on Overseas Elections
September 16, 2009 10:33 AMA promising development for global news junkies: the group political science blog The Monkey Cage is seeking poli-sci posts on elections around the world. As Joshua Tucker puts it in the post announcing the initiative: Here’s the motivation.... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Another Case for Bipartisanship
September 16, 2009 09:56 AMAt his Mother Jones blog, Kevin Drum makes an interesting case that bipartisanship is important, after all. On the most contentious issues now before Congress, he says, Democrats have addressed at least some conservative concerns. But... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Brauchli: “Too Many People Call Our Newsroom”
September 15, 2009 07:08 PMHowie Kurtz hasn’t had to range far afield for story subjects the last couple months. Today, he delivered an in-depth piece detailing how a Washington Post Magazine story was killed after publisher Katharine Weymouth expressed displeasure with the... Continue reading
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The Kicker
More Thoughts on the Big Speech
September 15, 2009 03:28 PMPrompted by Nate Silver’s latest thoughts on this topic, Ezra Klein asks, “Do Speeches Work?” His conclusion: That said, the polls measure public opinion. The speech's impact on elite opinion is rather different. My sense from... Continue reading
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Desks
The Audit Business
- The impossibility of tablet-native journalism Why Murdoch’s The Daily didn’t make it
- Anti-paywall dead-enders Why worry about evidence when you can argue against straw men?
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
Blog
The Kicker last updated: Mon 11:37 AM
- Farewell to The Daily
- Must-reads of the week
- The media news cycle is bananas
- Pass the #popcorn
- Must-reads of the week
The Future of Media
News Startups Guide last updated: Thu 10:24 AM
- TRVL A free iPad travel magazine
- TheDigitel A small chain of local news sites/ aggregators in South Carolina