http://www.cjr.org/ en Copyright 2009 Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:48:05 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=3.2 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Appearing on WAMU's The Kojo Nnamdi Show a couple weeks ago, NPR ombud Alicia Shepard engaged in a practice that’s becoming increasingly popular among media watchers: she talked about Glenn Beck. “When Glenn Beck is on NPR,” she said, “I can be assured there will be a lot of emails. I feel like, 'Hey you should hear... http://www.cjr.org/news_meeting/a_bushel_and_a_beck.php http://www.cjr.org/news_meeting/a_bushel_and_a_beck.php News Meeting Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:48:05 -0500 The Times has done a really nice job exploring dubious practices in the credit-card industry, not to mention efforts to reform it. These are all subjects close to my heart. Today it has a new installment in its “Card Game” series with Frontline, this one on the sneaky ways consumer-credit giant Experian and... http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/times_maintains_consumer_credi.php http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/times_maintains_consumer_credi.php The Audit Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:15:37 -0500 The Murdoch Street Journal has been a slow-motion overhaul, and it takes a minute sometimes to realize that things you skim over today would never have appeared a couple of years ago. “State Death Taxes Are the Latest Worry” “Death tax” isn’t a neutral word so it shouldn’t be used in the news columns, particularly when others are available.... http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/foxy_headines_in_the_new_journ.php http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/foxy_headines_in_the_new_journ.php The Audit Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:09:55 -0500 Twitter is listless no more. Following in the footsteps of Facebook, the increasingly popular platform has given its users the ability to sort other Twitter users into lists. "The idea is to allow people to curate lists of Twitter accounts," Twitter’s list feature project lead, Nick Kallen (@nk), explained. For example, you could... http://www.cjr.org/the_news_frontier/twitter_realistidealist.php http://www.cjr.org/the_news_frontier/twitter_realistidealist.php The News Frontier Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0500 For my money, McClatchy’s Goldman series remains the best show these days on business-press Broadway. It’s sort of the “Masterpiece Theater” to Matt Taibbi’s “Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” In previous episodes, Goldman is seen selling defective securities while shorting them at the same time and chasing harried jewelry entrepreneurs and bartenders out of house and home,... http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/as_goldman_turns.php http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/as_goldman_turns.php The Audit Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:26:09 -0500 The Los Angeles Times provoked gasps last April when it took the once-controversial idea of front page advertising one misstep further. The financially strapped paper ran an ad thinly disguised as a news story in the body of its front page—an “innovative” concept it had pitched to NBC for the TV drama Southland. Yesterday, the even more beleaguered Detroit... http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/a_step_too_far.php http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/a_step_too_far.php The Kicker Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:53:50 -0500 A few further thoughts re: my Campaign Desk post on how the media strains for meaning in off-year elections: First, the fact that a local outcome doesn’t hold great significance for divining the national mood doesn’t mean it’s not important—or even that it’s not important nationally. A Detroit Free Press article about that Michigan state Senate... http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/more_thoughts_on_offyear_elect.php http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/more_thoughts_on_offyear_elect.php The Kicker Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:03:16 -0500 Speaking of tick-tocks, and I recently was, American Banker's US Banker magazine just published a credible entry on the bank-rescue follies of the fall of 2008 by Jeff Horwitz, who wrote it as a school project upstairs in the Journalism School. Good for him and the school. The minute-by-minute, inside-the-boardroom business-news subgenre has exploded with the... http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/american_banker_on_bank_rescue.php http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/american_banker_on_bank_rescue.php The Audit Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:47:49 -0500 Tomorrow, voters around the country will go to the polls to elect officials in a variety of races. These campaigns, known as the “off-year elections” because of the absence of regularly scheduled federal contests, are mostly obscure. But a few of them—the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and (especially) Virginia, and the House race in New York’s Twenty-third Congressional District—have... http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/press_to_cliche_we_just_cant_q.php http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/press_to_cliche_we_just_cant_q.php Campaign Desk Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:31:02 -0500 The Economist's Democracy in America blog chats up Dan Froomkin about White House coverage, the perils of attempted objectivity, and working at an "internet newspaper" that often acts more like an interactive supermarket tabloid: DIA: Much of Huffington Post’s traffic is driven by gossipy stories about sex and entertainment. Are you concerned about the effect... http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/the_huffington_post_is_truly_a.php http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/the_huffington_post_is_truly_a.php The Kicker Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:13:35 -0500 Unless you live in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, most of Arizona, or off the grid with sundials, you turned your clocks back an hour yesterday, in the annual return to standard time. (Nowadays, lots of clocks turn themselves back, so it’s actually less work than it used to be.) The period that just ended is daylight saving time. Not daylight savings,... http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/early_bird_special.php http://www.cjr.org/language_corner/early_bird_special.php Language Corner Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:34:00 -0500 In our New Media Landscape, populated as it is by species struggling for survival, the most endangered species of all is that hearty, adaptable, and yet increasingly rare animal know as ‘reporting.’ We hear the refrain over and over again: It’s not commentary that’s in trouble, it’s reporting. What democracy really needs is reporting. Local reporting. Investigative reporting. Shoe leather... http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/shoe_leather_new_balance_587_r.php http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/shoe_leather_new_balance_587_r.php The Kicker Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:24:43 -0500 A little less than two weeks ago, I wrote a post noting the press’s love for stories about how the president is bungling his approach to Congress: whether he is, at a given moment, adopting an assertive public posture or a low-key approach, some quote machine will be at hand to say he’s doing it all... http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/new_press_angle_obama_had_it_r.php http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/new_press_angle_obama_had_it_r.php The Kicker Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:14:05 -0500 David Carr looks at the business press and sees a connection between staffing cuts at business news outlets and the diminished standing of businessmen, and business in general, in the eyes of the public. He says it's more than just the economics of the media industry. But it isn’t just that Cadillacs aren’t selling like they used to. It’s... http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/carr_has_a_point.php http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/carr_has_a_point.php The Audit Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:11:31 -0500 Every lobbyist swarming Capitol Hill these days knows that, when it comes to legislation, the devil is always lurking in the details, not lounging in the concepts. Yet it is concepts, not details, which are drifting down to the public--who will be in for a surprise when they realize that reform is not what they think it is. How these... http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_devil_in_the_details_part_1.php http://www.cjr.org/campaign_desk/the_devil_in_the_details_part_1.php Campaign Desk Mon, 02 Nov 2009 09:51:05 -0500