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Thu, 27 Mar 2008
Blogging the Long War
Bill Roggio wants to be your source for conflict coverage
By Posted at 09:00 AM
For much of the twentieth century, Americans co-existed with the country’s armed forces in a way we don’t anymore. In the 1940s and ’50s, millions of Americans served in the fight against imperial Japan and Hitler’s Germany, as well as Kim Il Sung’s North Korea and its Chinese allies; in the sixties, millions of boomers wore the uniform in... Read More
Thu, 3 Jan 2008
The Redemption of Chris Rose
Like his city and his newspaper, a survivor
By Posted at 09:00 AM Comments (1)
On a breezy Sunday morning in October 2006, residents of New Orleans—displaced, exhausted, wondering if they would live to see their city’s resurrection—woke to one of the most audacious acts of mass psychotherapy ever performed by an American newspaper. It took place under an unlikely byline. Chris Rose, a columnist for the daily Times-Picayune, was once known primarily for... Read More
Thu, 5 Jul 2007
Bending to Power
How Rupert Murdoch built his empire, and how he uses it
By Posted at 10:55 AM Comments (3)
“There might be other buyers more palatable to them. But who’s to say Rupert Murdoch is all that bad?”
Brian Rogers of T. Rowe Price, advising the Bancrofts to sell The Wall Street Journal.
The answer to this question depends on what you mean by bad—or good—and on who is a credible witness. Robert Thomson,...
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Thu, 10 May 2007
The Shield Bearer
How a conservative congressman from Indiana became journalism’s best ally in the fight to protect anonymous sources.
By Posted at 01:02 PM
Representative Mike Pence, a fourth-term Republican, delivers his speech with the cadence of a southern minister. “Over and over the media tells us America is tired of the war. Yes, America is tired. It’s tired of what we’re being told about this war,” he says, his voice rising and his face tightening. “It’s tired of the incessant negativity. Tired... Read More
Thu, 1 Mar 2007
Capturing Cuba
Ann Louise Bardach has spent fifteen years in relentless pursuit of the island nation, its dictator, its exiles, and their secrets.
By Posted at 08:30 AM
I met Ann Louise Bardach at her home in Santa Barbara one afternoon in early January. I was running late because of traffic and just before I arrived, she called to inform me that I had missed something “very big.” As she breathlessly led me into the kitchen of the modest-sized bungalow she shares with her husband, the actor... Read More
Mon, 1 Jan 2007
Vanity Fire
Graydon Carter’s political outrage has fueled a resurgence in Vanity Fair’s serious journalism. But how far can he push the signature high-low mix of this Conde Nast cash cow?
By Posted at 08:30 AM
David Hirschman’s question for a 2004 Media Bistro article was the same one reporters had been asking Graydon Carter for more than a year: “Do you plan to keep Vanity Fair more political?” Hirschman was referring to the magazine generally and to Carter’s ferocious editor’s letters in particular, which, since 2003, had become an outlet for his disgust with... Read More
The Enthusiast
Why you should trust the literary critic John Leonard on the coarsening of our intellectual culture.
By Posted at 08:30 AM
John Leonard was a literary prodigy who became editor of The New York Times Book Review at the tender age of thirty-two; today he is sixty-seven, and during a recent interview with Bill Moyers, sounded very much like a “lion in winter.” He has been writing cultural criticism in mainstream newspapers and magazines — among them The New York... Read More
