American Journalism Review back issues from August 2008:
More than a notion? How Barack Obama is influencing our vocabulary.(ABOVE THE FOLD)
Aug 01, 2008; ... When I reported for duty as interim dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism in June, it wasn't lost on me that I was following in the wake of the estimable Tom Kunkel. Readers of this column know that Tom left the college that month to become president of St. Norbert College in De ...
The future of newspapers.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Aug 01, 2008 ... Thank you so much for Charles Layton's recent piece in AJR "Bridging the Abyss" (June/July). This is exactly the kind of cold water the industry needs thrown in its face right now. For far too long the coverage of the industry crisis has been dominated by well-meaning writers cheering the ...
Vanishing Iraq coverage.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Aug 01, 2008 ... I read your story "Whatever Happened to Iraq?" (June/July) because I am trying to figure out the same thing. Why did the news from Iraq disappear about the time the situation here started to change? I think the problem might be that the American success in Iraq doesn't fit the earlier ...
Shameful Behavior.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Aug 01, 2008 ... All of you should stop and hang your heads in shame for 15 seconds for your misuse of the word "epicenter" in "Investigating the Dean" (April/May). "Epicenter" is a geological term meaning on the surface of the earth, above the real center of an earthquake. In other words, ...
An AJR homecoming: Jennifer Dorroh is AJR's new managing editor.(FULL COURT PRESS)(American Journalism Review)
Aug 01, 2008; ... You never print the good news. It's a lament editors have heard for years from readers overwhelmed by tales of tragedy, mayhem and heartbreak. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] So we'll accentuate the positive. We'll take a break from the relentless litany of ...
Sweet! Welcome to the high-energy world of Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief, indefatigable blogger, Obama watchdog--and interviewing technique guru.(THE BEAT)(Interview)
Aug 01, 2008; ... There are several ways to discover that Lynn Sweet, columnist and Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times and tireless chronicler of all things Obama, is no fan of indirect questions. Watching her in action at a Barack Obama press conference or being her student would ...
Voice in the wilderness; A retired journalist provides up-to-the-minute local news online in his rural Virginia county.(DROP CAP)(James Gannon's Rappahannock Voice )
Aug 01, 2008 ... Two years ago, James Gannon felt a growing frustration with local news coverage in Rappahannock County, Virginia, a rural area about 70 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Gannon, a former Detroit News Washington bureau chief and onetime editor ...
Politico animal: a year and a half after launch, Politico lives up to the hype.(DROP CAP)
Aug 01, 2008; ... When veteran Washington Post political reporters John Harris and Jim VandeHei urged their bosses to create a Web site strictly dedicated to politics, management didn't jump at the idea. Less than two years later, Politico, the venture they envisioned--and left the Post to take ...
Correction of the month.(Jesse Helms)(Correction notice)
Aug 01, 2008 ... "An article today in Sunday Business about missed opportunities to reduce America's dependence on imported oil refers to a 1990 effort by Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina, to block higher ...
Dizzying array.(Cliche Corner)(Brief article)
Aug 01, 2008 ... "A flurry of recent research indicating that Vitamin D may have a dizzying array of health benefits has reignited an intense debate over whether federal guidelines for the 'sunshine vitamin' are outdated ..." (Washington Post) "Right now, federal rules keep nearly all ...
Blog Binge: more than 70 percent of the political journalists surveyed by communications firm Brodeur in May said they spent at least an hour per day reading blogs and other online media. AJR asked seven political writers and reporters to name their must-reads.(DROP CAP)
Aug 01, 2008 ... <Pre> Tom Edsall, The Huffington post Real Clear Plitics The Huffington Post Real Clear Markets The Page by Mark Halperin, Time Marc Ambinder, TheAtlantic.com Open Left Arts & Letters ...
Going long: a new quarterly bucks trends toward web publishing and short-form journalism.(DROP CAP)(Dispatches)
Aug 01, 2008; ... The new publication called "dispatches" doesn't look like your typical news-magazine. It's the size of a grocery store romance novel, and its 200 pages are devoid of color. The cover is plain brown. But don't hold the lack of splashy graphics against this unassuming quarterly ....
Cable's clout: with their obsessive single-topic focus, are the three 24-hour cable news channels setting the agenda for the rest of the media when it comes to the presidential campaign--even though most of the material they endlessly flog originates somewhere else?(Cover story)
Aug 01, 2008; ... Chances are, most Americans knew something about Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, by the middle of March. Wright, after all, had been mentioned in connection with Obama in hundreds of print, online and broadcast reports since Obama had declared his candidacy for ...
Handheld headlines; News organizations are embracing content aimed at cell phones and other mobile devices as part of their survival strategy in the digital age.
Aug 01, 2008; ... Never mind that you risk walking into walls or oncoming traffic while trying to type m. nytimes.com on a cell phone keyboard. Never mind that your fingers are too big for the keys. Never mind that the type seems awfully small. Welcome to the age of mobile news and entertainment ....
The Oakland project: in an echo of the Arizona Project that investigated the murder of slain journalist Don Bolles in 1976, Bay Area news outlets, journalism schools and media groups have joined forces to complete the unfinished work of murdered Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey.
Aug 01, 2008; ... During the final hour of his life, Chauncey Bailey ate breakfast at McDonald's and bought a meal for a homeless man. He was on foot, heading toward his newsroom a few blocks away when he spotted his killer. The assassin wore a black ski mask and brandished a sawed-off shotgun. ...
Disconnected; As embattled news organizations try to safeguard their futures with intensely local coverage, there's often a wide gulf between journalists and the communities they cover.
Aug 01, 2008; ... You can't blame Linda Borg, who's covered education for the Providence Journal for roughly 10 years, if she sometimes feels as if she's not even speaking the same language as the students and parents she writes about--because quite often, she's not. "Ironically, I face some of ...
Notice what you notice: stop obsessing about the depressing industry news on Romenesko and open your eyes to all of the amazing stories out there.
Aug 01, 2008; ... New York Times urban affairs reporter Sam Roberts describes himself as somewhat shy, not apt to approach strangers on subways, Like many journalists, he's more likely to wander around looking for an irresistible, quirky nugget that's just waiting for some wide-eyed reporter to come along ...
First responders: citizen media's agility during the Iowa floods offers a lesson to traditional journalists.(THE ONLINE FRONTIER)
Aug 01, 2008; ... On Friday, June 13, Denise Clark drove to an emergency shelter in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to find out how she could help her flooding community. She was eager to lend a hand, but after waiting for two hours with no instructions, she headed home. Her husband, computer engineer Todd Millard, ...
Investigating his own dark story.(BOOKS)(The Night of the Gun)(Book review)
Aug 01, 2008; ... For most journalists, the route to the New York Times doesn't generally include crack smoking, drug dealing, spouse beating and jail time. But all those activities preceded David Carr's arrival in the big time. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Both enthralling and appalling, ...
On the go: what's the outlook for mobile TV news?(BROADCAST VIEWS)
Aug 01, 2008; ... If local television news is going to survive, it will have to get out of the living room. And the den. And the kitchen. Having watched its audience shrink for years, the broad-cast industry hopes to bring viewers back by taking its show on the road. But is mobile broadcasting really the ...
Win some, lose some; Tribune's editorial approach is as wrongheaded as its business ideas are refreshing.(THE NEWSPAPER BUSINESS)
Aug 01, 2008; ... When I was a young newspaper reporter in upstate New York, the publisher decided to measure the amount of copy produced by each of his reporters. His secretary was assigned to measure the column inches each reporter turned in. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When word got ...