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Behind the News

  1. February 08, 2010 11:42 AM

    Behind the Veil: Covering Iraq’s Women in Hiding

    CJR presents an ongoing video series about the work of investigative reporters

    By Center for Investigative Reporting

    ABOUT THE SERIES

    Welcome to The Investigators, an ongoing Web video series produced by the Center for Investigative Reporting highlighting incisive work—as it happens—by journalists around the world. The series features interviews with journalists, who share the stories behind their international investigations into human rights abuses, financial corruption, political malfeasance, environmental destruction, and other abuses of power. Often...

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  2. February 04, 2010 11:01 AM

    Hearts, Minds, and the Satellite Dish

    America's televised message in the Arab world is dull and poorly managed

    By Justin D. Martin

    CAIRO—The United States government has on occasion distressed over the nature of TV news in the Arab world and its perceived negative effect on public attitudes toward America.

    During the Bush years, American officials repeatedly criticized Al-Jazeera for inciting anti-Americanism, and for its alleged flirtations with Al-Qaeda. In 2004, the United States launched its own Arabic news channel, Al-Hurra, to...

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  3. January 29, 2010 02:56 PM

    Comments of the Week

    January 25-29, 2010

    By The Editors

    Every Friday, we excerpt some of the most insightful, articulate, interesting, and entertaining comments we receive each week. Think we’ve missed something? Well…comment! (This article has been expanded since it was first posted.)

    The Great Paywall Debate

    After news that Newsday has drawn only 35 Web subscribers since its site went behind a paywall drew scorn from some industry-watchers, Ryan...

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  4. January 29, 2010 11:18 AM

    Endangered Species

    News librarians are a dying breed

    By Craig Silverman

    When it comes to the layoffs and buyouts that have hit newspapers over the last couple of years, copy editors seem to be the most at risk of losing their jobs. So it wasn’t too much of a shock when Leslie Norman’s husband was laid off from his copy editing position at The Wall Street Journal.

    But then last...

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  5. January 29, 2010 07:00 AM

    The Washington Post Scrubs a Post about the Post

    And readers would never know

    By Clint Hendler

    On Wednesday, Bill Turque, the Washington Post’s education beat reporter, posted an excellent blog item showing his readers a little bit of the inside game at his paper. It was titled “One Newspaper, Two Stories”—a title that, by the end of the day, would become more apt than Turque ever could have expected.

    That’s because editors pulled the post...

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  6. January 22, 2010 02:00 PM

    Comments of the Week

    January 18-22, 2010

    By Kimberly Chou

    Every Friday, we excerpt some of the most insightful, articulate, interesting, and entertaining comments we receive each week. Think we’ve missed something? Well…comment!

    Reporters Doubling as Docs in Haiti

    On Wednesday, Curtis Brainard wrote about television journalists in Haiti who are also trained as doctors, and the journalistic ethics involved when someone like CBS’s Jennifer Ashton or CNN’s Sanjay...

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  7. January 22, 2010 10:55 AM

    Is Haiti’s Earthquake a “Game-Changer”?

    Probably not in the way that some pundits think

    By Henry (Chip) Carey

    In the days after Haiti’s earthquake, several observers have expressed hope that the disaster could, ultimately, be a game-changer for the country. Robert Maguire, head of the Haiti program at Trinity University in Washington, D.C., has noted, “There’s a potential silver-lining in a deep, dark cloud.” And New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote, “Far more...

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  8. January 21, 2010 03:03 PM

    “I Can’t Take it Anymore”

    A former Haiti-based foreign correspondent on a country in ruins

    By Jonah Engle

    “Earthquake rocks Port-au-Prince,” read the brief news item.

    I let out a yell. The first report Tuesday evening mentioned only some damaged buildings, but I was worried. Having recently returned from three months working as a correspondent for the Haitian Times in Port-au-Prince, I knew how vulnerable the city—dominated by haphazardly built settlements clinging to steep...

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  9. January 20, 2010 12:12 PM

    The Truth Is No Defense

    How an op-ed in a Slovenian daily left one American facing a prison sentence

    By James Smoot

    I was five minutes from my house in Ljubljana, Slovenia when my neighbor called. The police were there looking for me, he said. I had no idea why I would deserve such attention, but I stayed elsewhere for a while—whatever it was, it couldn't be good. When the police are looking for you it's best not to be found, particularly...

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  10. January 20, 2010 10:47 AM

    Steve Lovelady, Editor

    Campaign Desk's founding editor dies at sixty-six

    By Mike Hoyt

    Steve Lovelady, who helped launch the Columbia Journalism Review into the digital realm after a stellar career as a serious editor, died of cancer last Friday at sixty-six. He died in Key West, where he had gone with his wife, Ann Kolson, to their vacation home.

    Lovelady was a something of a wizard with words and story ideas—“a magician,” as...

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  11. January 19, 2010 11:29 AM

    Repairing Haitian Radio

    Internews sends team of specialists, technicians to restore local broadcasting

    By Curtis Brainard

    With radio and television news outlets crippled by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti last week, Internews, an international media development organization, announced Wednesday that it was sending a team to the impoverished island nation to help get broadcasters back up and running. The team began to arrive on Friday, and over the weekend I sent a list...

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  12. January 15, 2010 11:32 AM

    Comments of the Week

    January 11-15, 2010

    By The Editors

    Every Friday, we excerpt some of the most insightful, articulate, interesting, and entertaining comments we receive each week. Think we’ve missed something? Well…comment! (Some comments shown here have been edited.)

    Lou and Me

    Ex-Chicago Tribune scribe Don Terry’s essay on his departure from the newspaper business—and how the Lou Grant television show helps him cope—prompted a mix...

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  13. January 14, 2010 04:01 PM

    Haiti, on Background

    A Haiti expert gives context to the current tragedy

    By Henry (Chip) Carey

    I have been to Haiti at least yearly for the past two decades, and have spent months working at the Hotel Christopher, where the UN has been based during most of those two decades. Among the 150 UN staff reported missing from that five-story, former hotel building is a former colleague, Gerardo Le Chevalier. I first met this charismatic, insightful,...

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  14. January 14, 2010 02:59 PM

    The Undercovered Country

    Haiti as journalists have known it

    By Sam Eifling

    Just when cable’s mournful drumbeat led us to think we were of one mind on the tragedy of the Haitian earthquake, Pat Robertson chimed in Wednesday and reminded us that television remains the plaything of mountebanks. Explaining why—after coups, famines, hurricanes, and now seism—Haiti persists in attracting God’s wrath, the 700 Club host explained that to expel their French colonial...

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