Whatever you might think of their motives, the Franklin Center staffers claim they want to do good work. “I do believe there’s a strain of political journalism out there on the right and on the left that’s ‘gotcha’ journalism,” said Greenhut. “We do serious, point-of-view journalism. But we don’t deal with straw-men arguments. We deal with the best arguments the other side has. We’re trying to do pieces that matter.”
United States Project
03:00 PM - September 13, 2012
‘Serious, point-of-view journalism’?
A look at the most ambitious conservative news organization you’ve never heard of
‘See you on the other side’ - Meet Jessica Lum, a terminally ill 25-year-old who chose to spend what little time she had practicing journalism
#Realtalk: This is the best moment to be in journalism - The old stuff isn’t coming back, but that’s okay
Streams of consciousness - Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism?
Sticking with the truth - How ‘balanced’ coverage helped sustain the bogus claim that childhood vaccines can cause autism
An ink-stained stretch - Can Aaron Kushner save the Orange County Register—and the newspaper industry?
This is the best moment to be in journalism (25)
The WSJ editorial page hits rock bottom (19)
The completist guide to Star Trek
Matt Yglesias watched every Star Trek movie and every episode of every TV show in the franchise
The uncomfortable questions not raised by Benghazi
The press and Congress are asking the wrong questions
Rob Ford in ‘crack cocaine’ video scandal
A video that appears to show Toronto’s mayor smoking crack is being shopped around by a group of Somali men involved in the drug trade
Why the underwear-bomber leak infuriated the Obama administration
The threat of even grander leaks
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
Isn't ideological agenda revealed in the way stories are written? I would think it's up to the reader to deconstruct that in any story — including this one!
I think announcing one's agenda up front is superfluous, because it's revealed in the text. I read economics blogs, for example, by progressives, and others by libertarians. The bias is rarely explicitly stated, but over time it becomes clear.
You seem to be proceeding from the assumption that readers expect neutrality in reporting unless explicitly told otherwise. I'm not sure that's the case.
#1 Posted by eatbees, CJR on Fri 14 Sep 2012 at 12:48 AM
The Columbia Journalism Review is likewise an advocacy organization. CJR advocates through story selection, slant and hints in the masthead that contain the name of a particular political party at the expense of an honest representation of constitutional structure (How about "Strong press; Strong Democratic Republic?" or "Strong Narrative Spinners, Strong Fascist State?").
Media insiders know when and where CJR has failed to report stories that would reflect poorly on old-school, left-leaning dailies. It doesn't take an insider to recognize CJR's recent celebration of a far-left paper in Oklahoma - in which CJR matter-of-factly labeled as conservative the towns liberal alt-weekly "This Modern Word" venue -- as a strong pull toward veiled bias. Perhaps CJR is a bit concerned about an upstart network whose sponsors would rather reveal their bias than their identity.
#2 Posted by feralKat, CJR on Sat 15 Sep 2012 at 01:12 PM
Come on, Justin, you seem to have bent over backward so far to give them the benefit of the doubt that your piece goes far too easy on what any fair-minded observer can see is simply right-wing agitprop. This is not a news organization by any possible stretch of the imagination, but simply political propaganda by other means. Give them credit for their audacity.
#3 Posted by John Ettorre, CJR on Fri 21 Sep 2012 at 10:37 PM