Editorial
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November 1, 2012 12:00 AM
Hard truths
What is the future of political factchecking?
As the presidential campaign wound down, it became clear that the media’s factchecking effort, which played a more prominent role in the coverage than it had in any previous election, is at something of a crossroads. Thanks to the truth-squadding—by teams at PolitiFact and FactCheck.org, as well as individual reporters around the country—we learned, among other things, that Mitt...
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September 6, 2012 10:56 AM
Tale of the tape … so far
Lessons for a year of scrutinizing campaign coverage
In two months, Americans will elect a president and determine who controls Congress. We’ve been tracking the coverage of these campaigns on CJR.org since late last fall through our Swing States Project, with a team of correspondents monitoring the work of political reporters in both the national press and electoral battlegrounds around the country. Given that many voters are...
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July 23, 2012 11:00 AM
A helping hand
The Ford Foundation reaches out to broaden minority coverage
Anyone who cares about the future of newsrooms is on the lookout for omens. And there have been plenty of bad ones lately. Newspaper vital signs, for example, are pointing south—profit margins, stock prices, ad revenue, and valuations. Jack Shafer, drawing on the work of the astute Philip Meyer, noted in his Reuters column recently that owners are reacting...
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July 19, 2012 11:25 AM
Editor in Chief’s Note
CJR's business crew unveil The Best Business Writing 2012
What is Hugh Grant—yes, that Hugh Grant—doing in a book called The Best Business Writing 2012? Turns out the actor’s secretly recorded interview with Paul McMullan, a former News of the World reporter and paparazzo who blew the whistle on Murdoch phone hackers, was one of the year’s most memorable stories, according to The Audit, CJR’s indefatigable business crew: Dean...
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June 18, 2012 06:50 AM
Audit Notes: Very profitable staff cuts; Dimon’s crisis bet; Obama and trade
Time Inc. squeezes Sports Illustrated for more money
Bloomberg's Edmund Lee gets a great quote from the editor of Time Incorporated's Sports Group, Terry McDonell, on why Sports Illustrated is reducing its staff of reporters and editors via buyouts:
“Everything is about money eventually and being more efficient,” he said. Although Sports Illustrated, which has 210 editorial employees, is “very profitable,” the reductions will allow the magazine to...
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May 9, 2012 07:00 AM
Aggregated assault
Whose work is it, anyway? A plea for standards.
“There’s nothing new under the sun.” Thus spake my high-school teacher, then nearing retirement, and if I remembered nothing else (besides his rampaging eyebrows and alarming amounts of nostril hair), I would not forget this. His point, at the time somewhat dispiriting, was that ideas are continually repackaged and re-presented. All these years later, surveying the (sometimes acid) reflux...
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May 1, 2012 06:00 AM
Editor in Chief’s Note
CJR's 50th birthday party continues
Perhaps the best thing about turning 50 is that people tend to toss you more than one party. Christie Hefner, chair of CJR’s half-century celebration, has been pulling out all the stops. The latest, on April 11, was hosted by Thomson Reuters in its Times Square aerie (we actually looked down on the ball that drops each New Year’s). Reuters’s...
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March 9, 2012 06:00 AM
Editor in Chief’s Note
Congrats and goodbye to deputy editor Clint Hendler, and a call for photos of journalists on the job
Although ’tis the season to look ahead, it’s time to say thank you to someone whose name is disappearing from the masthead after this issue: Clint Hendler, who began at CJR fresh out of J-School and over the next five years proceeded to make himself generally indispensable. For example, he actually reread all 50 years of the magazine in order...
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March 7, 2012 06:00 AM
Show us the Money
Broadcasters and the FCC need to get political ad data online
The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision unleashed a torrent of campaign spending, the impact of which we are witnessing firsthand as the GOP primary unfolds, media market by media market. Candidates and their advocates set records for broadcast ad buys in both South Carolina and Florida. And Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ad expenditures, estimates that...
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January 12, 2012 06:00 AM
In the Dark
The campaign to weaken campaign-finance disclosure laws
Journalists are big believers in the First Amendment; its legal force undergirds the fearless journalism that democracy requires. But now comes a perversion of that amendment, an effort to turn it against another tool that enables democracy-sustaining journalism: the laws that require political donors to make their names known, and that empower vital reporting on money, power, and influence....
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January 5, 2012 06:00 AM
Executive Editor’s Note
Welcome Cyndi Stivers, our new editor in chief
This is the first issue of the Columbia Journalism Review’s second half century, and already you’ll find a significant change aimed squarely at that unwritten future. Near the top of the masthead on page 2 is the name Cyndi Stivers, our new editor in chief, who started on December 1, and whom I’d like to publicly welcome here.
Cyndi...
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November 22, 2011 09:00 AM
Chairman’s Note
As I write this, every day seems to yield a new story about something called Occupy Wall Street. I have no idea how long Wall Street will be occupied, but it occurs to me that this fiftieth-anniversary issue of the Columbia Journalism Review celebrates something we might call Occupy Journalism. Like Occupy Wall Street, CJR is in the protest business....
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November 22, 2011 09:00 AM
Editor’s Note
This is a handsome issue, no? Two entities are responsible for that. The first is Point Five Design, our art consultant, comprised of Alissa Levin, Ben Levine, and Nathan Eames. Their classy and intelligent sensibility has graced our magazine and website since 2007. Point Five helps us turn ideas into images when illustrations are needed, and they always seem to...
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Fall 1961
Why a Review of Journalism?
The arguments for a critical journal far outweigh the hazards
What journalism needs, it has been said time and again, is more and better criticism. There have been abundant proposals for professional study panels, for institutes with squads of researchers, for critical journals. Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism has decided to attempt such a journal. Two considerations brought about the decision: First, the need, magnified in a critical...
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The Audit Business
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- Hot air Rises Above on CNBC An anchor pins a minor dip in stocks on the TV appearance of a minor politician
The Observatory Science
- Dull news from Doha UN climate summit a ho-hum affair for the press
- Highway to the danger zone Following Sandy, HuffPo and NYT dig into the folly of coastal development
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- NBC News sets good example for Medicare reporting People perspective leads to clear explanation of impact of proposed changes
- In Pennsylvania, a niche site with wide reach PoliticsPA drives political conversation in Keystone State
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