On the latest episode of The Kicker, we run through some of the week’s biggest media stories, including a ratings leaderboard shakeup for cable news, a spurious conspiracy that consumed the right-wing media universe, and a new study that says–surprise–journalists drink too much caffeine and alcohol. Then, we move on to the media coverage of the terrorist attack in Manchester, and tackle why we think the industry’s model for covering terror attacks is broken. Finally, CJR’s David Uberti interviews Clara Jeffery, editor in chief of Mother Jones. They discuss the magazine’s novel approach to funding its political coverage as well as the role Mother Jones played in breaking the Trump-Russia story.
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SHOW NOTES:
- “Cable News Ratings Upheaval” by Michael O’Connell, The Hollywood Reporter
- “The Seth Rich conspiracy shows how fake news still works” by David Weigel, The Washington Post
- “Journalists drink too much, are bad at managing emotions, and operate at a lower level than average, according to a new study” by Lindsay Dodgson, Business Insider
- “The endless loop of terror victims: Lazy journalism that lets ISIS run the newsroom” by Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Poynter
- The original Mother Jones story, published in October 2016, on Christopher Steele’s investigations, by David Corn: “A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump”
Pete Vernon is a former CJR staff writer. Follow him on Twitter @ByPeteVernon.
