Editorial RSS
Tue, 13 May 2008
Who Will Tell Us?
Journalism is losing its reporters
By Posted at 09:00 AM Comments (4)
Read through the coverage of any presidential campaign and you will invariably find instances in which the conventional wisdom was turned on its head. Yet there is a sense that the conventional wisdom about the current contest has been especially wrong. The New York Times, itself a chief purveyor of conventional wisdom, said as much in a March 9 analysis... Read More
Thu, 6 Mar 2008
A Question of Velocity
In the pursuit of traffic, we'd do well to think before we post
By Posted at 09:00 AM
The world of journalism is convulsed with matters of online traffic—how to get it, how to keep it, how to measure it. Traffic is the new circulation, and is considered central to the slow and uneven migration of the advertising-revenue model from print to digital. And just as the circulation equation can produce strategies that detract from the quality of... Read More
Tue, 15 Jan 2008
Supply and Demand
Journalism must invest in educated consumers
By Posted at 09:00 AM
The news in recent years about civic education and engagement in American society has been dismal, and particularly so when it comes to young people’s attention to serious news. All but the most cynical critics would agree that a ready supply of high-quality news and information is essential for our democracy to work, and that, for the moment, we... Read More
Wed, 5 Dec 2007
Iraq and the Cost of Coverage
Serious stories, serious money
By Posted at 07:00 PM Comments (1)
The debate about the ramifications of the U.S. troop “surge” that began last winter in Iraq is both highly politicized and highly significant. Critics from the right assail the press for failing to report signs of progress from the surge, while critics from the left fault it for failing to convey evidence of its futility. It falls to journalists... Read More
Tue, 11 Sep 2007
Letting Go
It's time to rethink journalistic competition
By Posted at 09:00 AM
In 1995, as newspapers were beginning to grapple with the seismic structural shift of digital technology, the late James Carey noted that modern American journalism is the product of a particular set of circumstances and a particular moment in history. “What is changing is not some preternatural form of journalism,” he wrote. “All terms of the political equation—democracy, public opinion,... Read More
Sun, 1 Jul 2007
Missed Story in Iraq
When diplomats are in danger
By Posted at 08:30 AM Comments (1)
Every March since the war in Iraq began, the Foreign Service Journal—the house organ of the American Foreign Service Association, the professional organization and union for U.S. foreign service employees—has examined the state of diplomacy and nation-building in Iraq. Reading those issues, one thing is apparent: the press has largely ignored an important story about the consequences for thousands of... Read More
Wed, 13 Jun 2007
It's His Nature
Rupert Murdoch and Dow Jones
By Posted at 11:03 AM
A familiar fable tells of a scorpion that asks a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is sensibly fearful of getting stung. But the scorpion is persuasive, pointing out that if he stings the frog, they will both sink into the water and die. Why would he do such a thing? So the frog agrees. Midway across... Read More
Wed, 6 Jun 2007
Calling Uncle Sam
How government can and should support a free press
By Posted at 11:58 AM Comments (1)
At a moment when our government appears to be battering the Bill of Rights in the name of combating terrorism and protecting national security, it’s important to keep in mind the many ways in which government–the state–can and should be a friend to and guarantor of free speech, the free flow of information, writers’ rights and liberties, and, yes, the... Read More
Thu, 1 Mar 2007
Blinded by Dubai
While the press gawks, workers are dying.
By Posted at 08:30 AM
“I realize I’m late to the party: Dubai is long past its media moment. The flurry of breathless write-ups—in Sunday travel sections and glossy lifestyle magazines—has come and gone.” Thus began Seth Stevenson, writing on January 8 in Slate about his own trip to Dubai. It’s true that the celebration of Dubai as the latest, greatest spawn of... Read More
Mon, 1 Jan 2007
Time To Go: Why Tribune is like Rumsfeld
The Tribune Company’s Donald Rumsfeld moment.
By Posted at 08:30 AM
In the military you shut up and follow orders; otherwise, things fall apart. Still, there can come a point when the strategy is a demonstrable loser. Then, sometimes, it is the generals who must go, or maybe the secretary of defense.
That’s true in corporations, too. When the Tribune Company orders manpower cuts, publishers and editors either follow... Read More
