Author Archive
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Campaign Desk
Primary Day Grab-Bag
May 18, 2010 01:47 PMWith closely-watched primaries in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas set today, and more on the horizon, there’s been a surge of horse-race coverage in the media lately—and much of it has been pretty good. But a close look at some recent... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Bread and Circuses—and Beer
May 17, 2010 10:13 AMWith primary elections set tomorrow in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas, today’s NYT offers looks at each of the races. Perhaps the most entertaining is Erick Eckholm’s dispatch from Philadelphia, where he finds Arlen Specter running assiduously away from... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
License to Kill, Part III
May 14, 2010 02:55 PMThe legal questions surrounding the Obama administration’s decision to authorize the extrajudicial killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen accused of fomenting terrorist violence from Yemen—which Campaign Desk has previously raised here and here—finally get some... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Politico: ‘Kagan’s Not Gay’ Story Not a Hard Call
May 13, 2010 11:07 AMAs speculation about Elena Kagan’s sexual orientation has circulated on the Internet in the wake of her nomination to the Supreme Court, leading newspapers have generally declined to address the rumors, and prominent commentators have tried to dissuade... Continue reading
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The Kicker
A Pride of Lions, a Flock of Geese, a Herd of… Electronic Bonds?
May 12, 2010 10:55 AMMatt Taibbi, in his 2005 evisceration of Tom Friedman’s writing style, said: The usual ratio of Friedman criticism is 2:1, i.e., two human words to make sense of each single word of Friedmanese. Friedman is such a genius... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
California Senate Race: Three Things You Oughta Know
May 12, 2010 09:42 AMIf it’s still the case that new trends start in California, the state’s 2010 Senate election may really be one to watch: voters have a wide variety of choices, and a range of outcomes seems possible. The three-term incumbent and... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Why My Brother Likes The Huffington Post
May 10, 2010 12:09 PMI confess: The Huffington Post brings out the Andy Rooney in me. The site obviously supports some good journalism, it’s just as obviously used skillful aggregation to build a tremendous audience, and as a professional media observer you’d... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Lindsey Graham: Maybe Not Such a Maverick, Either
May 10, 2010 10:52 AMLate last week, there was a fair bit of online chatter (see here, here, here, and here) about an unlikely subject: an academic paper that’s cluttered with terms like “Bayesian heteroskedastic ideal... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Newsweek’s Woes, Way Back When
May 6, 2010 01:28 PMIn his version of the “What’s the matter with Newsweek?” story, published yesterday afternoon at Slate, Jack Shafer noted that the debate over the fate of the newsweeklies has been going on for a good long time, and... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Poli-Sci Perspectives on Covering the Midterms
May 5, 2010 04:00 PMI have a short article in the May/June issue of CJR (not currently online) about the sometimes fraught relationship between political journalists and political scientists—whose work, in my view, deserves more attention from the press. One of the points in... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Arkansas Senate Race: Three Things You Oughta Know
May 5, 2010 06:00 AMWith the 2010 midterm elections looming on the horizon—and some primaries rapidly approaching—Campaign Desk will soon be devoting more attention to the coverage of the campaign for control of Congress. To start, we’ve selected five Senate races for close scrutiny:... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Pictures for Peace
May 4, 2010 08:00 AMA brief item in our May/June issue described how Kunda Dixit, the editor of the weekly newspaper the Nepali Times, used photojournalism to document the consequences of a decade-long conflict between Maoist guerrillas and state forces in his home country.... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
So, Do Debates Really Matter?
April 29, 2010 03:08 PMChris Cillizza, the political blogger for The Washington Post, had an item the other day that asked an interesting question: Do debates really matter in shaping election outcomes? And he provided a mostly helpful answer, which is that... Continue reading
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The Kicker
Which One of These is Not Like the Others?
April 28, 2010 02:58 PMWhen, in the wake of John Paul Stevens’s announced retirement from the Supreme Court, press attention started to focus on candidates for his seat, Merrick Garland seemed like an outlier. Elena Kagan was the Obama favorite who’d been... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Skimming the Surface
April 27, 2010 04:37 PMThe front page of today’s New York Times features an article on the state of play on financial reform that is responsible, sober, and straightforward. It is also a perfect example of how he-said, she-said journalism can fail... Continue reading
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The Kicker
The Law of Conservation of Mavericks
April 27, 2010 01:19 PMJohn McCain’s recent disavowal of the “maverick” brand has been a little embarrassing for the Arizona senator, because—well, because he’s called himself a maverick on plenty of occasions, including in the subtitle... Continue reading
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The Kicker
A Teaser So Nice They Used It Twice
April 23, 2010 10:31 AMScore one for the awards-are-meaningless crowd: the good folks at the American Society of Magazine Editors, having already decided that Men’s Health’s habitual cover-repurposing qualified it as a finalist for “general excellence” honors in the 2010 National Magazine... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
An Oversteeped Tea Party?
April 22, 2010 04:06 PMOf the various criticisms that get levied against Politico, one of the most common is that it inflates stories that should remain trivial. So it was interesting, and a little surprising, to see a prominent article... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
Understanding the Unaffiliateds
April 20, 2010 04:47 PMWith the midterm elections looming on the horizon, stories about voter frustration are all the rage. Today, USA Today takes a stab at the subject, devoting its lead space to an article noting that “unaffiliated” registrations—voters who aren't... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
An Error, an Oversight, and an Overreaction
April 19, 2010 10:10 AMIs there anything left to say about the Domenech-Kagan affair? Howard Kurtz’s story in last Friday’s Washington Post describing the episode—in which CBS News invited the fury of the White House by posting an item by a conservative... 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
- 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