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Letters to the Editor

  1. November 1, 2012 12:00 AM

    Letters to the editor

    Readers respond to our August/September issue

    By The Editors

    Fleurs du mal

    Very compelling argument and well-stated, Clay Shirky (“Failing Geometry” CJR, September/October). Traditional media’s “original sin” (re: the Web) was to make themselves in their own image, while the alpha geeks building the Web saw things differently. Time is the new currency, and the Web’s gift to humanity is that of saving time. Legacy media is just the...

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  2. September 12, 2012 11:00 AM

    Letters to the Editor

    Readers respond to our July/August issue

    By The Editors

    Gyno-mite

    Your list of “40 women who changed the media business in the past 40 years” (CJR, July/August) is impressive enough, so far as it goes. But without Marlene Sanders, your list, or any such list, is incomplete. Sanders’s lonely female anchor outpost for ABC-TV News in the late ’60s, and her later documentary duty for CBS-TV News insures her...

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  3. July 27, 2012 11:08 AM

    Notes from our online readers

    Comments erupt over David Simon's paywall piece

    By The Editors

    In May, David Simon, the former Baltimore Sun reporter who created the television shows The Wire and Treme, reiterated his longtime belief that paywalls—and paywalls alone—could save the newspaper business. Our readers reacted—and Simon punched back.

    How much longer are we going to have people idiotically proclaim that readers always paid for the news until the big bad Internet came...

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  4. July 19, 2012 11:25 AM

    Letters to the Editor

    Readers respond to our May/June issue

    By The Editors

    China syndrome

    Sambuddha Mitra Mustafi asks in “Sino the times” (CJR, May/June), “Can China’s billions buy media credibility?” The problem with the China’s government-owned media is that every item of information is ideologically loaded. That there is no objective journalism to them means that there is nothing to be believed. Everything can be fabricated, whether it be information about milk,...

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  5. May 9, 2012 07:00 AM

    Notes from our Online Readers

    Readers weigh in on Ron Howell's "The New York Times Goes to the Dogs"

    By The Editors

    In a March piece, Ron Howell wrote about the increase in stories about dogs in The New York Times since Jill Abramson, author of The Puppy Diaries, became executive editor. Here are some of the comments:

    I think you’ll find that it’s not just the NYT that’s become obsessed with dog stories. Media all over the country have recently...

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  6. May 8, 2012 12:10 AM

    Letters to the Editor

    Readers respond to our March/April issue

    By The Editors

    Patch work

    Excellent piece (“The constant gardener” by Sean Roach, CJR, March/April), and even though I didn’t join Patch until 2010, my experience matched Roach’s in a number of ways. Before joining Patch, I had a lot of experience running larger digital news operations and my own website, which is probably why I was so frustrated by the amount of...

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  7. March 14, 2012 06:00 AM

    Notes from our Online Readers

    Readers weigh in on Gordon's "Gender Imbalance on the Campaign Trail," and Fahy's "Media Made Hawking Famous."

    By The Editors

    When so many voters are women, why do male reporters outnumber female reporters two to one? Meryl Gordon explores that question in “Gender Imbalance on the Campaign Trail.” Here’s how some of our readers responded to her article:

    Great article. I would add that perhaps the gender disparity in covering the candidates is what is leading to all-male presidential...

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  8. March 13, 2012 06:00 AM

    Letters to the Editor

    Readers respond to our January/February issue

    By The Editors

    Out of the park

    Congratulations on a truly outstanding January/February issue. Magazines I read—like The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books—hit the walkoff homer often, and now the Columbia Journalism Review is in the lineup with them. Robert F. Bomboy Danville, PA

    Kilgore was here

    Dean Starkman’s CJR cover story (“A Narrowed Gaze,” January/February) attempts to resolve...

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  9. January 20, 2012 06:00 AM

    Notes From our Online Readers

    Readers respond to Erika Fry's "The Romenesko Saga"

    By The Editors

    In early November, CJR’s Erika Fry contacted the Poynter Institute with questions about new aggregation practices at its popular Romenesko+ blog. The result: Jim Romenesko’s resignation, widespread online outrage, and reams of commentary on aggregation standards in the link-and-summarize era. “The Romenesko Saga” was Fry’s blow-by-blow account of the bizarre affair:

    A fine piece that raises some important questions—especially...

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  10. January 10, 2012 06:00 AM

    Letters to the Editor

    Readers respond to our 50th anniversary issue

    By The Editors

    At Fifty

    Congratulations on the publication of your recent fiftieth anniversary issue (CJR, November/December 2011). It was truly the finest collection of commentary and analysis concerning the media that I have ever seen. I am so happy to see that your magazine has improved dramatically in the past few years.

    Bill White Los Angeles, CA

    I am truly honored that...

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  11. December 20, 2011 01:02 PM

    Corrections

    Mistakes from our 50th anniversary issue

    By The Editors

    • We regret that in our fiftieth anniversary special masthead, a list of everyone who’s ever worked here, we garbled Michael Massing, a CJR pillar for thirty-two years. First, we could have listed him with the Associate Editors, since he was an editor on staff from 1979 to 1983, and second, we should have got the years right for his...

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  12. November 28, 2011 06:00 AM

    Letters to the Editor

    Reader's congratulations, and reactions from our September/October issue

    By The Editors

    Fifty Candles

    Journalism the world over is in the midst of profound, transformative change, and it is not yet clear what forms will eventually emerge and become dominant.

    What will not change is the importance of the function of journalism in the lives of everyone. Ordinary citizens and their leaders; the politically and economically oppressed; tycoons and Main Street merchants;...

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  13. November 28, 2011 06:00 AM

    Notes From Our Online Readers

    Readers respond to Erika Fry's "Escape from Thailand"

    By The Editors

    In September, Erika Fry, a CJR assistant editor, wrote of her “Escape from Thailand,” an ordeal that began when she was charged with criminal defamation for a story she wrote for the Bangkok Post, about an official accused of plagiarizing a dissertation on organic asparagus. The story drew a wide, varied response. Here’s a selection of what readers had to...

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  14. August 28, 2011 12:42 PM

    Notes From Our Online Readers

    Readers recommend books to our summer reading list

    By The Editors

    In mid-July, with temperatures rising and the entire CJR office dreaming of beach chairs and umbrella drinks, we asked our readers to help us compile a list of books that journalists might enjoy reading on their summer vacations. Here are a few of the titles you came up with:

    The Cruel Radiance by Susie Linfield on photography and political...

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