Author Archive
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The Kicker
A Few Wise Words on GatesGate
July 23, 2009 04:57 PMAs Richard Thompson Ford writes in Slate today, many of the reactions to the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Cambridge home—and of President Barack Obama’s discussion of the incident at his press conference... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Pessimism on Af-Pak
July 23, 2009 03:04 PMI wanted to be persuaded by Peter Bergen’s argument in Washington Monthly about why the U.S. mission in Afghanistan can still end well. Really, I did. And in the course of his essay, Bergen pairs his argument... Continue reading
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The Kicker
George Will and Climate Change: Have We Seen This Movie Before?
July 23, 2009 02:46 PMHe’s ba-ack. After igniting a firestorm in the blogosphere (and attracting some attention from mainstream media) with a February 15 column in which he misrepresented scientific data in order to discount... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
The Economy Today: Football Stays Strong
July 23, 2009 10:29 AMThe national papers devote most of their space to President Barack Obama’s press conference last night, where, as The Washington Post notes in an analysis piece, “Obama cast retooling the U.S. health-care system as crucial to the nation's... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Everything’s a Crisis
July 23, 2009 09:55 AMJust six months in, Barack Obama’s political future is at stake on many fronts, according to the nation’s political press corps. To cite three examples pulled from yesterday’s New York Times alone: Tom Friedman concludes his latest column... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Another Take on the Cost of That House Health Care Bill
July 22, 2009 11:43 AMA few days ago we noted the split between major papers and the Associated Press about how to characterize the cost of the health care reform bill put forward by House Democrats. Not wanting to be left out,... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Transparency or Trillions?
July 22, 2009 10:24 AMOne criticism commonly heard about the dread MSM is that all the major outlets are operating out of the same playbook. Whatever its merits at other times, that complaint doesn’t apply to the coverage of the Troubled Asset Relief Program... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
The Economy Today: For the Birds
July 22, 2009 10:07 AMFederal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke appeared before a Congressional committee yesterday and told lawmakers he plans to keep interest rates low, The New York Times reports. In testimony that built off his recent Wall Street Journal <a href=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970203946904574300050657897992.html#mod=todays_us_page_one... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
The Economy Today: Taxing Times
July 21, 2009 10:20 AMAs a proposed surtax on top earners becomes the latest political football of the health care debate, The Wall Street Journal reports today on how growing income inequality is actually weakening revenues for one of the government’s core... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
A Busy Couple of Days in Iran
July 21, 2009 08:31 AMAfter a relatively quiet period that left media outlets stepping back and taking stock, events in Iran picked up again late last week, as former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s surprisingly bold sermon at Friday prayers... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Keep On Shuffling
July 20, 2009 03:16 PMI’m as sympathetic as any writer to the columnist’s need to come up with an argument on demand. But in “The Shuffle President,” his piece in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine, Matt Bai misreads his subject, uses poll... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
The Economy Today: Have We Met Before?
July 20, 2009 10:08 AMWhat’s a shady subprime mortgage broker to do when the housing market goes belly-up? Become a shady loan modification firm instead, perhaps without even changing offices, The New York Times reports in a long front-page story. The Times... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Still More on Sotomayor
July 17, 2009 04:37 PMI know from anecdotal experience that my views about the value of the Senate hearings on Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination—and thus, on press coverage of those hearings—are not universally held. But I think I found support... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Cost Control, Back in the News
July 17, 2009 02:59 PMIn the wake of Atul Gawande’s much-discussed article in the June 1 New Yorker—in which he argued that a key factor driving up medical costs was a professional culture that tolerates doctors who order too many expensive but... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Lobbyists Slimy; No One Too Surprised
July 17, 2009 12:11 PMTwo weeks after Mike Allen broke the story of The Washington Post’s planned “salons,” he’s back today with another tale of unseemly buck-raking behavior: the news that a conservative organization made a blatant “pay for play” proposal to... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Obama, Hard Truths, and the Media
July 17, 2009 11:12 AMThere’s an interesting contrast in coverage of President Barack Obama’s address to the NAACP in The New York Times and The Washington Post today, encapsulated in the headlines on their stories. From the Times: “Obama Tells Fellow Blacks: ‘No Excuses’... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
The Numbers Game
July 17, 2009 10:36 AMAfter House Democrats unveiled their proposal for health care reform Tuesday, media outlets attached a variety of cost estimates to the plan. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal ran with a preliminary... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
The Economy Today: Stimulus Struggles
July 17, 2009 10:10 AMAs the economy continues to founder, the debate over the effect of the federal stimulus package continues to heat up. Obama administration officials called in reporters yesterday to lay out arguments in support of their approach, reports... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
(Still) Supremely Boring
July 16, 2009 04:48 PMIn the run-up to this week’s hearings on Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination, one of the memes circulating about why the proceedings mattered, despite the fact that the outcome was not in doubt, was that they would establish boundaries for... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
The Economy Today: Jobless Recovery on the Way
July 16, 2009 10:09 AMThe Federal Reserve has joined the ranks of those predicting a jobless recovery, USA Today reports. The Fed now expects unemployment to crack double digits toward the end of 2009 and remain well above 8 percent through 2011.... 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
Blog
The Kicker last updated: Fri 3:00 PM
- Must-reads of the week
- The media news cycle is bananas
- Pass the #popcorn
- Must-reads of the week
- Tom Rosenstiel leaving Pew
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
