Behind the News
-
November 20, 2009 08:00 AM
Everybody’s On Edge
Atlantic, Economist arrive at strikingly similar cover designs
I think half the news sites I read have lately been running a highly irritating ad for The Economist, which covers the entire screen when you click on a link. I usually skip the thing as fast as I can, but before I managed to do so the other day, this image—showing a cover from the magazine’s issue for the...
Continue reading -
November 17, 2009 01:03 PM
Disappearing Act
The East Valley Tribune counts down its final days
A couple of weeks ago, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ryan Gabrielson learned that his former employer, the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Ariz., was stopping its presses for good.
It was no secret that the Tribune’s parent company, Freedom Communications, was crippled with debt. The California-based company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy...
Continue reading -
November 13, 2009 05:44 PM
Comments of the Week
November 9-13, 2009
Starting today and every Friday, we will be excerpting some of the most insightful, articulate, interesting, and entertaining comments we receive each week, in a new feature aptly titled ‘Comments of the Week.’ Think we’ve missed something? Well…comment!
Straight from the Source
Greg Marx’s “When is News Fit to Print?”, about questionable sourcing employed by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram...
Continue reading -
November 13, 2009 04:54 PM
The Mail
Reviewing recent issues of Written By, the Washington City Paper, and Liberty
People send us their newspapers and magazines. Sometimes, we review them.
Written By, October/November 2009
Reading Written By, a bimonthly magazine produced by the screenwriters’ union, is, for a journalist, a bit like going to Canada. There are just enough linguistic differences to provide occasional puzzlement—what does a “showrunner” do? What are these things called “Standards and Practices”?...
Continue reading -
November 13, 2009 09:57 AM
The “T Word”
A conversation with Dave Miller of the Killeen Daily Herald
After Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s deadly rampage that killed thirteen people and wounded another thirty at Fort Hood in Texas last week, journalists and commentators struggled with the question of how, exactly, to characterize the attack. Some were quick to condemn his spree as an act of terrorism; others cautioned against hanging any labels on the attack before...
Continue reading -
November 11, 2009 05:31 PM
Hats Off to Larry
Larry King Live takes a dramatic, emotional look at the execution of the D.C. sniper
Thank you, Larry King, for delivering—to borrow a phrase—a fair and balanced program Tuesday night on the execution of the D.C. sniper.
The king of talk has been criticized over the years for lobbing softballs at his guests, from Hollywood madams to wannabe presidents to disgraced preachers, who hope a wide enough grin will mask their sinning.
But Tuesday night,...
Continue reading -
November 11, 2009 01:37 PM
A Note on the Paper’s Ongoing Redesign
"Our new redesign will (enhance our newsstand appeal; revitalize our brand; give Dear Abby the front-page presence she deserves)"
To: All Hands
From: The Executive Editor
Re: The Redesign
The continuing controversy over (the size of the weather map; the shuttering of the Book section; the fight in the newsroom) should not diminish our excitement over the ongoing redesign of the newspaper.
We are moving ahead with a sweeping redesign that (comes at a critical juncture...
Continue reading -
November 09, 2009 03:02 PM
MinnPost Turns Two
A brief conversation with Joel Kramer
Those agonizing over the future of local news may take heart at the success of MinnPost.com, the online news site founded by former Minneapolis Star Tribune publisher Joel Kramer, which turned two on Sunday. The nonprofit site held a birthday bash for its members yesterday and about 175 people turned up, Kramer...
Continue reading -
November 06, 2009 04:57 PM
The Dangers of Disaster Reporting
A job that's fraught with professional and emotional pitfalls
By now, members of the national press have descended on Fort Hood, Texas to tell the story of the worst soldier-on-soldier massacre in U.S. military history.
Their job will be fraught with professional and emotional pitfalls. One of the biggest, and the one that poses the greatest potential danger at this point, concerns the “why” of the rampage that left...
Continue reading -
November 06, 2009 11:14 AM
Fort Hood: A First Test for Twitter Lists
In the aftermath of violence, lists suggest the benefits of collaboration
Journalism and curation—it’s becoming increasingly difficult to determine where the one ends and the other begins. The chicken/egg relationship between the two solidified into conventional wisdom during the aftermath of the Iranian election this summer, when journalists—mostly impeded from shoe-leather reporting and other, more traditional methods of newsgathering—were forced to play the role of social-media editors. In the...
Continue reading -
November 04, 2009 09:22 AM
Contra Iran
Looking back at media coverage of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, thirty years later
Thirty years ago today, Iranian students invaded the United States embassy in Tehran and captured seventy-one American diplomats, keeping fifty-three of them hostage for 444 days. The Iranian hostage crisis, as it came to be known, was a watershed moment in U.S. history. All at once, it symbolized the haplessness of the Carter administration; the hostility to the U.S. in...
Continue reading -
October 29, 2009 04:14 PM
FCC Taps Waldman to Study “State of the Media”
Beliefnet founder to make policy recommendations to ensure "a vibrant media landscape"
Steven Waldman, veteran journalist and co-founder of Beliefnet, has been tapped by the FCC to lead an agency-wide initiative designed "to assess the state of media in these challenging economic times and make recommendations designed to ensure a vibrant media landscape."
Waldman announced the move to his readers in a Beliefnet blog entry yesterday afternoon....
Continue reading -
October 28, 2009 10:56 AM
“Not Here This Year”
Despite numerous setbacks, National Conference of Editorial Writers goes on
The sixty-third annual convention of editorial writers could hardly have met at a worse time.
Only a few days earlier, many of the papers represented carried stories saying that despite some positive signs in the rest of the economy, the downturn for newspapers had yet to hit bottom. The Pew Research Center for People and the Press had released...
Continue reading -
October 27, 2009 01:31 PM
Man About Town
Meet Kery Murakami, founder of the Seattle PostGlobe
Kery Murakami, reluctant news entrepreneur, is the founder of the Seattle PostGlobe, a nonprofit Web startup that provides reported news for the Seattle area. He is also the site’s primary reporter, editor, art director, accountant, copy chief, IT troubleshooter, and press agent. “Six months ago I never thought I’d be here,” he says, somewhat wearily. “But this could...
Continue reading
—advertisement—
Desks
The Audit Business
The Observatory Science
- Saving Corwin’s Creatures MSNBC wades into new territory with environmental documentary 100 Heartbeats
- Trains, Planes, and Carbon Offsets Times keeps a needed eye on green premiums
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- Greg Craig and Transparency
- Not For All the News in China, Part I Former NYT Shanghai bureau chief Howard French on the coverage of Obama’s trip to Asia
