Todd Gitlin : Author Archive : CJR

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Mind Games
April 15, 2010 10:42 AM
What Is Happening to News: The Information Explosion and the Crisis in Journalism | By Jack Fuller | University of Chicago Press | 224 pages, $25 Jack Fuller is a veteran of almost four decades in journalism. He reported from... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 11-02-08
November 3, 2008 08:45 AM
Halloween was over but revelers were still in costume Sunday morning. Pundits-in-chief appeared confident that they had served the American people well during their extended, peculiar process of choosing a global leader. Cheerleaders were wearing their game faces. But strikingly,... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 10-26-08
October 27, 2008 08:53 AM
The campaign has lasted as long as a rhinoceros stays pregnant, but at the end, for both candidates, will come delivery if not deliverance. Ten days before that blessed day arrives, though, the campaign’s duration seems to have cast a... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 10-19-08
October 20, 2008 09:03 AM
My dictionary offers this definition of statesman: “a senior politician who is widely respected for integrity and impartial concern for the public good.” On Meet the Press, the much decorated Colin Powell declared that he was voting for Barack Obama.... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 10-12-08
October 13, 2008 09:10 AM
Tom Brokaw is rapidly making up for lost air time by building premises on sand. Conventional wisdom piles atop conventional wisdom, none of it substantial, none of it justifiable, all of it delivered with sonorous assurance from the font of... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 10-5-08
October 6, 2008 08:56 AM
Sometimes it’s hard to know when Tom Brokaw is actually gauche or playing gauche; actually ironic or ironizing his own irony. On Meet the Press, Brokaw played a clip of McCain’s interview last week with the editorial board of the... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 9-28-08
September 29, 2008 08:21 AM
In a democratic society, what is the point of questioning a candidate or any other powerful figure? When the network gets its “get,” what does the public get? The purpose isn’t self-evident. The host of a Sunday morning show in... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 9-21-08
September 22, 2008 08:50 AM
“It began,” Secretary of the Treasury Czar Hank Paulson told George Stephanopoulos, “with excesses in the system, irresponsible behavior and practices in financial institutions.” On Meet the Press, Paulson again alluded to “excesses”—“excesses building up for sometime in this country”—and... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 9-14-08
September 15, 2008 08:01 AM
The possibility that Sarah Palin may well find herself one proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency has flushed out a hitherto buried issue, that of John McCain’s age and health. George Stephanopoulos raised the subject this Sunday, quoting Obama surrogate... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 9-7-08
September 8, 2008 09:34 AM
If Sarah Palin’s nomination kindled a certain skepticism among the talking heads last week, this week’s rousing St. Paul speech cast a spell. As everyone must know, Palin electrified the 98.5 percent Caucasian delegate crowd Wednesday night, and the jolts... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 8-31-08
September 1, 2008 10:53 AM
The week served up an embarrassment of riches for the Sunday shows. There were, of course, Denver developments: the Clintons’ make-good speeches along with a stem-winder by Montana governor Brian Schweitzer, and, of course, Obama in the stadium, outlining his... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 8-24-08
August 25, 2008 09:27 AM
George Stephanopoulos tried to get chief Obama strategist David Axelrod to say something—anything—interesting about the Biden choice, but Axelrod was relentlessly on-message ticking off his points: Biden is “accomplished,” “expert,” “working class,” full of “wisdom,” has “overcome adversity,” and he’d... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 8-17-08
August 18, 2008 08:28 AM
Once again, ABC This Week’s roundtable tilted off-center, even without semi-regulars Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts to do the honors. (Perhaps Ms. Roberts, having sneered last week that Obama was making a big mistake in taking his vacation in “exotic”... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 8-10-08
August 11, 2008 08:27 AM
On Meet the Press Sunday, David Gregory told his political round table: The big question…on the campaign trail is readiness to lead, to handle a crisis like this [Russia-Georgia]. And the readiness issue has been a huge theme of the... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 8-3-08
August 4, 2008 08:56 AM
ABC’s This Week began with the same montage that every other broadcast has featured this week: the clips of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton coupled—or is it tripled?—with Barack Obama in McCain’s spot seen ‘round the world, along with a... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 7-27-08
July 28, 2008 09:02 AM
Several of McCain’s utterances in his first interview with George Stephanopoulos since April deserve, as they say, to “make news”—to be emblazoned all week on front pages and reprised in TV clips—though, being substantial utterances, almost surely they will not.<br... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 7-20-08
July 21, 2008 08:27 AM
Imagine! Almost an entire installment of Meet the Press devoted to an interview with a private citizen who is not running for office—who receives the attention not only because he is famous but because he…knows something. Quite a lot, actually.... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 7-13-08
July 14, 2008 09:25 AM
Last week, I tasked George Stephanopoulos to ask McCain a serious question about his acumen in the matter of Iraq, and, if I may abuse the privilege of this space (and my readers’ toleration), this week I would like to... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Sunday Watch 7-6-08
July 7, 2008 07:28 AM
Todd Gitlin watches Sunday morning talk shows so that you don't have to, and, every Monday morning, offers his take on selected programs. Goodbye, Russert Watch; hello, Sunday Watch! George Stephanopoulos rounded up New England Senate surrogates for his Sunday... Continue reading
Campaign Desk

Russert Watch 6-15-08
June 16, 2008 12:00 PM
Tim Russert, dead at fifty-eight, was more than just a showman. He had gifts galore for friendship and gusto, and stamped the life around him with excitement. His Sunday ritual must have benefited from his schmoozing capacities. He was one... Continue reading

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