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Tue, 1 Jul 2008

Second Life

A storied German-language newspaper remakes itself as a magazine
By Mariah Blake
Posted at 09:00 AM

Even in this era of editorial reinvention, few media outlets have remade themselves as completely as the legendary German-language newspaper Aufbau.

Founded in 1934, the publication’s mission was to help Jewish refugees and their children shed their European past and rebuild their lives in the United States. It was, in the words of longtime editor Manfred George, “an... Read More

Thu, 26 Jun 2008

Outsourced Edit?

Newspaper ad departments are already outsourcing to India. Is editorial next?
By Ben Frumin
Posted at 09:00 AM Comments (2)

Rajesh Kumar, a twenty-six-year-old with tight jeans, long black hair, and a gold earring, drags a small black-and-white image of a pointing butler’s glove across the flat screen of his Mac. He’s designing an advertisement for the Star Tribune, a newspaper that publishes halfway around the world. The simple ad is for a home-cleaning service run by a man... Read More

Tue, 24 Jun 2008

Name-Dropping

Jay-Z? Shawn Carter? Mr. Z?
By Chris Faraone
Posted at 09:00 AM

The New York Times rarely refers to rock stars such as Alice Cooper, Moby, and Elton John by their birth names. With few exceptions, Vincent Furnier, Richard Melville Hall, and Reginald Dwight get free passes on their alter egos, as do the likes of American Idol icon Clay Aiken (Clayton Grissom) and anti-Christ
superstar Marilyn Manson (Brian Warner).... Read More

Thu, 1 May 2008

Mission Revisited

Pundits paved the way to "Mission Accomplished"
By Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky
Posted at 12:00 PM

On May 1, 2003, President Bush stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and told the world: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.” The plans for securing and reconstructing weren’t so... Read More

Tue, 15 Apr 2008

Science in Arabic

A conversation with the leaders of the Arab Science Journalists Association
By Curtis Brainard
Posted at 09:00 AM

Last fall, CJR’s Curtis Brainard discussed the state of science journalism in the Arab world with Nadia El-Awady and Zainab Ghosn, the president and a board member, respectively, of the nascent Arab Science Journalists Association (ASJA).

What kind of science stories do you find in the Arab world?

Nadia El-Awady: There are science topics that we all... Read More

Thu, 10 Apr 2008

Blogging the Coup

When their press was silent, Thai citizens delivered
By Dustin Roasa
Posted at 09:00 AM

In September 2006, when the military overthrew the government of Thailand’s Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless coup, the Thai-language press had little to offer in the way of coverage or criticism. (This may have been due to the presence of soldiers in many newsrooms around the country.) Arthit Suriyawongkul, a native of Bangkok working in Germany at... Read More

Tue, 8 Apr 2008

Putting on Putin

Criticism gets creative at Russian Esquire
By Alexander Galperin
Posted at 09:00 AM

Vladimir V. Putin is a fashion victim, addicted to luxurious clothes. Or at least he is according to the Russian version of Esquire magazine, which “posed” him as a model in December, the snow-peaked Kremlin towers in the background, in a pretentious fashion shoot that was actually a trick of the magazine’s art department. Putting on Putin has become a... Read More

Thu, 21 Feb 2008

Games in Palestine

Can a video game replicate reporting in a war-torn country?
By David Cohn
Posted at 09:00 AM

I had just arrived in the Middle East, and my editor was describing my first assignment for the wire service: I was to accompany the Israel Defense Forces on a raid of a suspected terrorist’s house. The piece would be published in a European paper that wanted a story about what happens on such missions, and how prisoners are treated.... Read More

Tue, 19 Feb 2008

Military Embeds: The World Tour

A military's handling of the media says a lot about its nation
By David Axe
Posted at 09:00 AM

In February 2006, I was detained by the U.S. Army and ejected from Iraq. My crime? Reporting on the weapons and tactics used to counter Improvised Explosive Devices, in apparent violation of the ground rules for embedded media. Unbeknownst to me—and to my on-the-record source, apparently—the military considers details about radio jammers (designed to block the signals that detonate IEDs)... Read More

Thu, 6 Dec 2007

The Big Picture

Movie journalists get an image makeover
By Megan Garber
Posted at 09:00 AM

The movie poster for this fall’s The Hunting Party features a black-and-white photo of Richard Gere and Terrence Howard, press passes dangling from their necks, pasted on a blood-orange background that reads: LIARS—CHEATS—PLAYBOYS—THIEVES. The last word in this litany? JOURNALISTS.

The poster is meant, presumably, to attract audiences through the sheer force of its irony. (They’re liars and... Read More

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