Revelations from an intellectual of the Interweb

Resist the spin, ye Veep-debate narrators!

Pop quiz: Let’s say you need to undergo a coronary bypass. And let’s say you learn, through a Google search from your hospital bed–thank goodness for your BlackBerry!–that the doctor the hospital has assigned to your surgery took six years, rather than the normal four, to complete med school. And that she obtained her M.D. […]

CJR’s new software guards against gotcha-ism

Media members the world over, your sense of self-worth should be just a little bit higher today: Sarah Palin doesn’t hate you! Or resent you or fear you or think she’s better than you or whatever! She actually kinda likes you! So much, in fact, that she reads all your work. Literally all of it. […]

Yet more evidence that Campaign 2008 has gotten rough: Gwen Ifill–notable for the dual distinction of being both the moderator of Thursday’s vice presidential debate and a Washington insider who is respected by pretty much everyone–has broken her ankle. Seems she took a spill at home, after tripping and falling down stairs. Per TVNewser, which […]

Wow. Not since Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace has a piece of video been so eagerly anticipated by nerds around the country. (Ourselves, by the way, included.) Because there’s more video of the Couric/Palin interview that CBS has yet to air…and it apparently contains footage of yet another Palin gaffe. CBS has said […]

And other reasons we need to re-think our approach to presidential debates

Talk about burying a lede. Some 1,100 words into his 1,400-word piece (“‘Substantive’ Press Is Taken for a Spin”) in today’s Washington Post, uber-critic Howie Kurtz writes, “While some journalists say privately they are censoring their comments about Palin to avoid looking like they’re piling on, pundits on the right are jumping ship.” The news […]

Todd Gitlin, who writes our “Sunday Watch” column for Campaign Desk (check out today’s, here), had a fantastic op-ed in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times. Newspaper opinion pieces, for all their verbal verve or rhetorical punch, are rarely lyrical; Gitlin’s piece is, thankfully, an exception to that rule. “This election campaign is about more than its […]