Author Archive
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Behind the News
Loneliness at the Foreign ‘Bureau’
April 23, 2012 02:18 PMThe Washington Post has 16 foreign “bureaus,” and 12 of them consist of just a single reporter, according to the newspaper’s website. The four remaining bureaus all consist of two journalists. Is the Post using the word bureau... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Which Countries Jail the Most Journalists Per Capita?
April 2, 2012 03:17 PMAt the end of each year, the Committee to Protect Journalists counts the number of journalists imprisoned worldwide and lists the countries in which they’re locked up. These data are very helpful, but I think we can... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Denying Death
March 26, 2012 11:34 AMWhile I’ve argued in this column that free speech in the world is trending toward expansion, a position I still maintain, governments nonetheless display a mushrooming fondness for thought control when it comes to the darker side of human... Continue reading
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The News Frontier
News Organizations That Haven’t Learned To Share
March 7, 2012 04:54 PMThe Economist does not let users of its free app share news items via e-mail, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or anything else. An Economist representative told me over the phone that paid app users are permitted to share content, and that’s... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Story on Tiny Country A Giant Failure
February 15, 2012 01:05 PMA recent 60 Minutes segment on the nation of Qatar was the most imprecise piece of journalism I can remember in the more than 20 years I’ve been watching the show. Bob Simon, who was assigned to the... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Why Aren’t More Arab Americans Working in Mainstream Journalism?
January 31, 2012 11:21 AMThere are anywhere between 3.5 and 5.1 million Americans of Arab descent, according to figures from the Arab American Institute, yet relatively few work in journalism full time. While meaningful estimates aren’t known, as journalism scholars that conduct demographic research... Continue reading
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The News Frontier
Twifficult
January 6, 2012 02:02 PMI was alone on a drive from Maine to Massachusetts in early December when a crazy idea hit me. Listening to Christmas music along a snow-lined I-95, my epiphany was to write a letter to rockstar Pink and ask her... Continue reading
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Behind the News
A Presidential Debate Abroad?
December 20, 2011 12:18 PMEvery fourth fall, more Americans watch presidential debates than just about any other live event in the US but the Super Bowl. The contests are by far the most-watched political events in this country. More than 50 million Americans watched... Continue reading
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Page Views
Hell Yes to Hell No
December 7, 2011 11:48 AMHell No: Your Right to Dissent in 21st-Century America | By Michael Ratner & Margaret Ratner Kunstler | The New Press | 176 pages, $17.95 A number of twentieth-century legal decisions helped establish the US as having one of the... Continue reading
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Behind the News
How Do Journos Find Time to Fight Corrections?
November 16, 2011 02:34 PMOn November 8, I received a call in my office from a frustrated online editor at The Bangor Daily News, my local paper. He was upset that I was “flaming the paper on Twitter” by questioning its accuracy, something he... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Speech in Israel Is Not Free
November 4, 2011 02:17 PMBoth Israeli and US policymakers are fond of calling Israel and the United States likeminded democracies. “America has no better friend than Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to applause from a joint session of Congress in a 2011 address.... Continue reading
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Campaign Desk
A Grand Year for Free Speech
October 21, 2011 04:52 PMNot since the disintegration of the Soviet Union have so many opponents of free expression quickly fallen from executive power. Countries like Tunisia and Libya weren’t just unwelcoming to journalists; these countries were routinely listed as among the worst... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Dear News Organizations: Stop Being Deadbeats
September 23, 2011 10:58 AMIf I paid my bills as slowly as many news organizations pay their freelancers, I’d be homeless, have a deactivated cell phone, and carry a credit score of about three. Many news organizations are quick to snatch up good freelance... Continue reading
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Behind the News
What Might an ‘American World Service’ Look Like?
September 6, 2011 02:40 PMIt is time for the US to follow the example of other modern democracies and provide citizens with a government-supported, twenty-four-hour news channel devoted to global news. After living in Cairo for two years, my wife and I recently... Continue reading
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Behind the News
How to Get Young People Interested in Global News
August 16, 2011 03:14 PMFor some time newsmakers and educators have stressed things like “civic duty” and being a “global citizen” in trying to convince young people to consume world news. The problem here is these entreaties couldn’t sound crustier to a nineteen-year-old—take it... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Apparently, Global News Orgs Don’t Commit Online Errors
July 27, 2011 04:41 PMFar too many modern news organizations do not have public corrections policies or prominent corrections pages, something that has been well-stated at CJR. International news outlets are certainly no exception. It has been my experience, after reporting from... Continue reading
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Behind the News
Why Journalism Helps Foster Global Innovation
July 21, 2011 01:18 PMRecent scholarship on innovation suggests that good ideas are often hatched when people are exposed to many different disciplines and lines of thought. Newton getting thumped by an apple and Archimedes’s rising bathwater are cute stories but, even if... Continue reading
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The Observatory
The Potential for Medical Journalism in Kenya
June 15, 2011 12:45 PMNAIROBI, Kenya—Before landing in Kenya, my doctor had me get shots for typhoid, tetanus, cholera, yellow fever, and meningitis. He also gave me malaria pills. One in every fifteen Kenyans has AIDS. Nairobi is home to Kibera, one of the... Continue reading
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Behind the News
What’s So Wrong With ‘Parachute Journalism’?
May 26, 2011 03:23 PMCAIRO—I’m an avid parachutist, though I’ve never jumped from a plane. A “parachute journalist” is a reporter who drops into a country for a relatively short period of time, files a story or handful of dispatches, and then leaves. ... Continue reading
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Behind the News
International News Sites Cover bin Laden’s Death
May 2, 2011 11:39 AMCAIRO—One of the benefits of teaching outside the U.S. is that I get to work with polyglot students. In my journalism ethics classes today, I scrapped my lesson plans and decided to peek at Osama bin Laden coverage on news... Continue reading
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Desks
The Audit Business
- Audit Notes: Facebook IPO edition
- The Chicago Tribune lights up the flame-retardant industry An outstanding investigation show how chemical companies preserve a toxic cash cow
The Observatory Science
- The western frontier KQED Quest, Pacific Standard keep their eyes on the other coast
- USA Today’s oily, gassy rainbow Detailed cover story a bit too rosy about ‘energy independence’
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- The over-covered image war Journalists are exaggerating the risk that Mitt Romney will be “defined” early
- Medicare and the $500 billion bogeyman Will a half-truth still work for the GOP?
Behind the News The Media
Blog
The Kicker last updated: Mon 3:17 PM
- The Pulitzer Prize luncheon, storified
- A game of telephone fools the Times
- What Warren Buffett sees in local newspapers
- Don’t take my traditional Internet away!
- Why China ejected Melissa Chan
The Future of Media
News Startups Guide last updated: Wed 2:13 PM
- Missouri Scout Subscription-based niche political news from a stockbroker turned political junkie
- Eye on Annapolis Unadorned, up-to-the-minute news for Maryland’s capital city
