Recently added articles from Columbia Journalism Review:
Opening shot.
Jul 01, 2008 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Just ask Dorothy: tornadoes in Kansas, including this large one that visited in May, are nothing new. Even extreme but singular weather events, such as Hurricane Katrina or the deadly tornadoes and flooding that hit the nation in June, cannot be linked to ...
Dissent deficit: an American ideal needs a workout.(EDITORIAL)(Editorial)
Jul 01, 2008 ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] To suggest that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were in any way blowback from U.S. actions (and inactions) in the Muslim world is to dissent, rather sharply, from the principal narrative that took root in this country, and that persists to ...
Voices of the tribe.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2008; Effron, Eric ... When I first saw your cover story ("Lost Media, Found Media" by Alissa Quart, C JR, May/June), I figured it was going to be yet another old-media lament about the fickleness and shallowness of new (is it still even new?) media. But I found Quart's piece to be a nuanced and balanced look at ...
The living book.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2008; Clardy, William ... I must take exception to Ezra Klein's declaration in "The Future of Reading" (CJR, May/June) that paper is a "wasteful, inefficient, and costly method of production." This would be valid only if you view reading a book to be a singular, individual event. But paper excels when books are ...
Everything old is news again.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2008; Hickman, Cecil ... Re: CJR'S May/June editorial, "Who Will Tell Us?" After decades working in local markets in every medium, I couldn't agree more with these findings [of a PEJ report that found that in all areas of journalism, more effort is devoted to repurposing material than to original newsgathering]. ...
Tall in the saddle.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2008; Cluff, Paul ... Cameron McWhirter's stirring account of his battle to protect sources ("Saved by the Shield," CJR, May/June) reminds all journalists of the fundamental responsibilities that we carry with us in our daily work, and how we can never rely on anyone but ourselves--and our integrity and ...
From CJR.Org: notes from our online readers.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2008 ... IN THE INTERNET AGE, it's not so easy to get away with lies and journalistic conflicts of interest. CJR'S David Dobbs explores one such instance in "To Disclose or Not to Disclose," in which Slate writers Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer revealed that four experts on an "Infinite Mind" ...
Fair and unbalanced.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2008; Dennett, Mark ... Tim Townsend raises a question in his essay, "Love Thy Neighbor" (CJR, May/June), that is responsible for much of the present distrust of media. He states that it is the "responsibility of journalists ... to write truthfully rather than just provide equal time to both sides ... in a ...
Mind the gap.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2008; Nash, Joseph ... A Dart to the Columbia Journalism Review for James Surowiecki's review of Roger Lowenstein's book While America Aged ("What We Sow," CJR, May/June). Though Lowenstein puts his finger on one of the problems facing the middle class--unwillingness on the part of companies and municipalities ...
Editor's note.(Editorial)
Jul 01, 2008; Hoyt, Mike ... YOU'LL SEE SOME new names on our masthead this issue, and we are happy to introduce you to the people attached to them. First of all, James Marcus was heralded in this space in January as our new editor at large but never made it to the masthead due to the terrible human flaws of his ...
Katrina washout.(Currents)(Hurricane Katrina)
Jul 01, 2008; Lanahan, Lawrence ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In late August, as the Democrats convene in Denver to choose their presidential nominee, residents of the Gulf Coast will be about to enter their fourth year of recovery from Hurricane Katrina. You wouldn't know it from press coverage of the campaign thus ...
Silent vows.(Currents)(same-sex marriage )
Jul 01, 2008; Lewis, Madeline ... SINCE THE EVERETT HERALD near Seattle, Washington, began publishing same-sex-union announcements in December 1990, some nine hundred newspapers--or 60 percent of the country's dailies--have opened their pages to such announcements, according to a survey conducted by the Gay and Lesbian ...
Hard numbers.(Currents)(Brief article)
Jul 01, 2008 ... 38 percent of newshole, during the week of October 21-27, 2007, dedicated to coverage of California's October wildfires 13 percent of newshole, during the week of May 12-18, 2008, dedicated to coverage of China's May 12 earthquake 86,592 estimated number of people ...
Second life.(Currents)(Aufbau newspaper)
Jul 01, 2008; Blake, Mariah ... 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 ...
Language corner and another think.(Brief article)
Jul 01, 2008; Perlman, Merrill ... Write LanguageCorner@cjr.org IF YOU THINK YOU'VE HEARD all of the linguistic twists and turns, you've got another thing coming. Well, actually you've got another "think" coming. But ask most people how to spell the phrase that means you get another chance, and you're ...
Darts & Laurels.(on the invasion of Iraq)
Jul 01, 2008; Hendler, Clint ... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] DART to the television news industry, for a shameful nonresponse to serious questions about their vetting of analysts hired to comment on the invasion of Iraq and other military matters. On April 20, The New York Times published David Barstow's ...
Flickring out: what will become of photojournalism in an age of bytes and amateurs?(IN MEDIA RES)
Jul 01, 2008; Quart, Alissa ... CLICHES ARE SOMETIMES TRUE. HERE'S ONE--PHOTOGRAPHERS DON'T LIKE TO give speeches. At a recent event, photographer Antonin Kratochvil screened slideshows of his work: American soldiers coolly observing the Iraqi distressed and dead; Lebanese militant youths standing restlessly near ...
Politics with drawl: our double standard for the southern twang.(THE LEARNING CURVE)
Jul 01, 2008; Hammons, Jane ... ON THE MARCH 4, 2007, COMMEMORATION OF BLOODY SUNDAY IN SELMA, Alabama, an animated Hillary Clinton spoke from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church, borrowing lines from a James Cleveland hymn. "Ah don't feel noways tahred!" the senator declared, her drawl booming out to the crowd. The ...
Endangered species: the big-city sports columnist: devoured by TV, negated by the Net.(SPORTS PAGE)
Jul 01, 2008; Weintraub, Robert ... "ALL I EVER WANTED TO BE WAS A NEWSPAPER WRITER." Those were the self-eulogizing words of Tony Kornheiser upon accepting a buyout from his newspaper home of nearly three decades, The Washington Post, in mid-May. Truthfully, the bon vivant known to fans as "Mr. Tony" had long ...
Sulzberger at the barricades: Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is racing to transform the embattled New York Times for the digital age. Is he up to the job?
Jul 01, 2008; McCollam, Douglas ... Corporate annual meetings are generally drowsy affairs--a pep talk by management, some PowerPoint graphics, a little predetermined voting, all topped off by a parade of cranks to the microphones to excoriate management about their pet causes. April's annual gathering of shareholders in The ...