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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged transparency

1. January 27, 2011 02:34 PM

   A New Commitment to Transparency at ESPN

   Network to codify its standards and practices

   By Craig Silverman

   In October the National Republican Congressional Committee sent an e-mail to supporters that was signed by former Notre Dame football coach and current ESPN contributor Lou Holtz. “My friend, YOU, are the NRCC’s 12th man and they urgently need your help to win every U.S. House seat possible, fire Nancy Pelosi, and elect a Republican to the Speaker’s chair this...

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2. November 29, 2010 07:19 PM

   Audit Notes: Up Next For Wikileaks: The Banks, Forbes, Gaming Google

   By Ryan Chittum

   Julian Assange is Forbes's cover boy this week. No surprise there. He just turned the diplomatic community on its head with a mass release of U.S. secrets. But it's not your typical man-in-the-news profile. Andy Greenberg sits down with Assange and gets a big scoop: That Wikileaks in several weeks will release a big email dump from a major U.S....

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3. December 31, 2010 11:39 AM

   Best of 2010: Clint Hendler

   Hendler picks his top stories from 2010

   By Clint Hendler

   No Handouts: The administration has denied independent photographers access to historic White House events that could easily be made public, instead releasing one carefully selected “handout” snap taken by their official photographer. It’s one of the clearest examples of message control under Obama, and it’s one done with an ironic twist: the official photographer was once a newspaper photographer active...

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4. December 29, 2010 01:11 PM

   Best of 2010: The Observatory

   Curtis Brainard picks the top stories from 2010

   By Curtis Brainard

   1. “New” Media Crucial in Aftermath of Haitian Earthquake With standard telephone, radio, and television communications disabled, “new” media platforms such s Twitter, Skype, and YouTube, were critical to delivering early information about damage and relief efforts in the aftermath of the 7.0 earthquake that rocked Haiti on January 12. 2. Reporters Doubling as Docs in Haiti Following the earthquake,...

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5. May 26, 2011 01:43 PM

   Bloomberg Ferrets Out New Details on the Fed’s Bailouts

   By Ryan Chittum

   There were so many bailouts going on in 2008 that Congress apparently forgot about some of them. Bloomberg gets a scoop this morning on details of an $80 billion Federal Reserve lending program that flew under the radar. Barney Frank, whose name is on the financial reform legislation that forced the Fed to reveal details about its bailout programs, tells...

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6. October 3, 2012 12:00 PM

   BPI’s beef with ABC News

   ‘Pink slime’ defamation suit a long shot, media report

   By Curtis Brainard

   The maker of “lean, finely textured beef,” which critics call “pink slime,” is unlikely to prevail in a defamation lawsuit filed two weeks ago against ABC News, according to most experts quoted in the press. Beef Products Inc. alleges that a string of on-air and online reports that the network produced from March to April amounted to “a month-long vicious,...

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7. October 3, 2011 11:03 AM

   CJR Event: Science News and Government Transparency

   Access denied

   By Curtis Brainard

   Has the Obama administration lived up to its promise to make science more transparent and accessible to the public? An investigation in the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) finds that despite President Obama’s early promise to create an open government, the nation’s science reporters feel there has been little to no progress since the Bush administration. Today,...

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8. November 21, 2011 11:10 AM

   Know Your Journalists

   New transparency website compiles personal data on reporters

   By Craig Silverman

   In 2006 Adrian Holovaty, then a programmer and journalist of some reputation, wrote a blog post entitled, “A fundamental way newspaper sites need to change.” In the five years since he published it, Holovaty went on to win a Knight News Challenge grant, launch EveryBlock, sell it to MSNBC.com, and become one of the leading programmer/journalists working today. As the...

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9. August 19, 2011 10:58 AM

   Matt Taibbi vs. the SEC

   Rolling Stone gets no credit from most of the press for a huge scoop

   By Felix Salmon

   Matt Taibbi’s 5,000-word exposé of the SEC’s document-shredding is a magnificent piece of journalism, and is the first and last place that you should look to understand what’s going on here. After the piece came out, Senator Chuck Grassley—who’s quoted in the article—made growling noises in the general direction of the SEC, which is now very much on the back...

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10. April 9, 2012 01:13 PM

    Q & A: Lucy Dalglish and Jennifer Lynch

    Two open government experts talk about the year’s top FOIA issues

    By Erin Siegal

    The FOIA Watchdog chats with Lucy Dalglish, director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and Jennifer Lynch, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, about this year's pressing FOIA issues. How has the Obama administration's handling of FOIA issues differed from that of the Bush administration? Lucy Dalglish: The Obama administration at least says the right things....

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11. February 13, 2012 02:46 PM

    Q&A: Michael Morisy, Co-Founder of MuckRock

    On helping journalists with their public records requests

    By Erin Siegal

    MuckRock is an online startup that helps journalists streamline, track, and fulfill their public records requests. Since May 2010, when the beta version of the site debuted, they’ve had 851 requests filed, 232 requests successfully completed, and 66 requests denied. The site has helped facilitate the release of 25,254 pages of government documents. MuckRock is currently part of the Boston...

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12. November 14, 2012 12:00 PM

    Salazar threatens to ‘punch out’ reporter

    Interior Secretary angered by tough questions at Obama campaign event

    By Curtis Brainard

    Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar threatened to “punch out” a journalist for having the temerity to ask him questions about public policy at an Election-Day event in Colorado last week. Salazar was at an Obama campaign office in Fountain, CO, as part of a tour through the state to support the president and encourage voter turnout. Dave Philipps, a...

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13. March 10, 2011 03:25 PM

    The WSJ Flags an Accounting Trick on Private Pensions

    By Ryan Chittum

    The Wall Street Journal had an excellent story yesterday on how major companies are playing around with their pension accounting to make their books look better. The paper gives it a good headline that in three words sums up what's going on here: Rewriting Pension History Michael Rapoport reports that AT&T, Verizon, and Honeywell are now going to recognize pension...

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14. November 18, 2010 05:21 PM

    The Chamber of Commerce, Front for Hated Industries

    Bloomberg reveals health insurers gave $86 million to oppose Obama's reform plan

    By Ryan Chittum

    Bloomberg gets a great scoop on the Chamber of Commerce, reporting that the health-insurance industry gave the secretive nonprofit a stunning $86.2 million last year to oppose Obama's health-care reform. The Chamber, as we've seen, isn't required by law to disclose who its donors are. That ought to change. But meantime, how are journalists supposed to get at that information?...

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15. December 6, 2010 03:50 PM

    The Muzzling of the FDA

    How government press officers stole our freedom

    By Jim Dickinson

    It is 1978. I have just been refused admission to a Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association section meeting that is to hear FDA commissioner Donald Kennedy speak in a Crystal City Marriott conference room. Outside the closed door, I see the commissioner bound off the escalator and stride toward me. He stops, looking puzzled. “Hello Jim,” he says. “Why aren’t you...

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16. December 29, 2011 08:10 PM

    This News Story Is Brought to You By…

    Shouldn’t TV news outlets be clearer about offering pay-for-play?

    By Steven Waldman

    One of the most disturbing trends in local TV news is the persistence of “pay for play”—when local TV newscasts allow sponsors to dictate content. The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a rule that would make it easier for the public to see which stations are engaging in these and other deceptive or ethically dubious practices. The National Association of...

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17. February 1, 2012 12:37 PM

    To Sue or Not to Sue?

    The first two years of OGIS

    By Erin Siegal

    Last June in Las Vegas, Corinna Zarek told a ballroom full of investigative journalists at the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors conference that she was there to help. "We are the FOIA advocates!" she announced. "This independent office, within government, to help FOIA requesters and members of federal agencies resolve disputes before they lead to litigation!" I listened with hope....

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18. December 13, 2010 01:03 PM

    Unopen to Failure

    Openness and transparency will help news sites survive

    By Justin D. Martin

    CAIRO—Isolation begets trouble. Myanmar and North Korea are isolated failures. Unvisited shut-ins die earlier than those with frequent human contact. Rumor mills grind their finest work when politicians hide out. You get it. This is true with news organizations, too—yet in 2010, many news outlets still seem determined to close themselves off from their audiences. Most of the 6.8 billion...

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19. December 2, 2010 10:20 AM

    WikiLeaks A Blunt Weapon, But We Should Use It

    A defense of the organization under new attack

    By Joel Meares

    Many of the charges behind the “hang Julian Assange” meme doing the rounds since WikiLeaks’s third “megaleak” on Sunday hinge on claims that the leaks could endanger diplomats and their informants. Such claims have been pretty roundly discredited by media watchers jumping to WikiLeaks’s defense, and even by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who described the charges as “significantly overwrought.”...

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