Columbia Journalism Review back issues from July 2007:
The missing link.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2007; ... Unbelievable. Horrifying. And completely inexcusable from a former assistant to the great Izzy Stone. Seven thousand, six hundred and thirty-nine words on the future of print journalism ("The Race," by Robert Kuttner, CJR, March/ April) and not one--not one on the irrefutable fact that ...
Forever oil.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2007; ... I would like to thank Daphne Eviatar for her nice review of my book, Poisoned Wells (CJR, March/April), but I don't agree with her comment that "Shaxson ... spends too much time blaming oil itself for Africa's conflicts." The very strong link between oil and conflict is now widely accepted ...
No thanks for the Laurel.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jul 01, 2007; ... Given the lack of coverage CJR has afforded the Society of Professional Journalists over the years, it was surprising and disappointing to see SPJ criticized in the May/June Darts & Laurels column. SPJ is the nation's largest journalism advocacy organization. After years of ...
Corrections.(LETTERS)(Correction notice)
Jul 01, 2007 ... In our list of journalism prizes in the May/June issue, we mistakenly listed the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing as going to the editorial board of the New York Daily News. In fact, that well-deserved award went to three Daily News employees--Arthur Browne, Beverly Weintraub, and ...
Editor's note.
Jul 01, 2007; ... IN AUGUST 1974, Richard Nixon was leaving the White House, Walter Cronkite was anchoring the news, Elton John was singing "Benny and the Jets," and Gloria Cooper, mother of two and mature college graduate, was looking for work. She answered an ad in The New York Times and got a position at ...
Hyphen heaven.(Currents)(use of epithets by Time magazine)
Jul 01, 2007; ... Time magazine has unlocked its archives on its revamped Web site, and I'm giddy with excitement. Now, free of charge, I can revel in Time's nine-decade celebration of the Homeric epithet. As quickly as I can move my fingers on the keyboard, I can find out whom Time has called ...
Defining Muqtada.(Currents)(Muqtada al-Sadr)
Jul 01, 2007; ... WHEN THE IRAQI SHIITE cleric Muqtada al-Sadr reemerged from seclusion in the spring to give a sermon denouncing the U.S. presence, reporters struggled as always for shorthand ways to describe this complex man. While the militant cleric has instigated two insurgencies with a simple command, ...
Hard numbers.(Currents)(statistics)(Brief article)
Jul 01, 2007 ... 200 approximate number of journalists charged by Pakistani police for defying a ban on political rallies 2 number of Urdu-language weeklies in New York City whose distribution points have been vandalized and whose editors have received threats 68 percent increase in ...
Southern strategy.(Currents)
Jul 01, 2007; ... MEDIA COMPANIES DISH out millions each year to protect copyright law, maintain ownership rights, and expand broadband lines in the U.S., but who would have guessed that the cause being pushed hardest by media lobbyists lately is one that affects such policies in Central America? ...
All the differents.(LANGUAGE CORNER)(grammar rules)(Brief article)
Jul 01, 2007; ... ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, "different from" is preferable to "different than." An element of logic, having to do with the positive and comparative degrees of adjectives, supports the preference. But the main reason for using "different from" is that in straightforward ...
Darts & Laurels.(Column)
Jul 01, 2007; ... LAUREL to the countless gatherers, makers, and consumers of news who over the years have brought to this column, along with their nominations, a shared regard for journalistic ideals and a spirit-lifting faith in the perfectibility of the craft. Meanwhile, for the editor who for more than ...
Memorial Day mush: it's time for the networks to get real about the war.(ON THE CONTRARY)
Jul 01, 2007; ... AS IS THEIR CUSTOM, THE NATIONAL TV NEWS PROGRAMS SPENT THE MEMORIAL Day weekend offering tributes to U.S. soldiers and their families. CNN introduced us to Marine Lieutenant Andrew Kinard, "an officer in the true tradition of the Marines," who, despite having lost all of his left leg and ...
The Halberstam you didn't know: a master of the Big Book, sure, but of friendship, too.(APPRECIATION)(David Halberstam )
Jul 01, 2007; ... FOR YEARS, HE WOULD CALL AT ANY TIME OF THE DAY OR NIGHT. IN THE LAST few months, however, after the heart attack that nearly killed him, his calls took on a steadier, saner routine, usually coming just after noon. Finally, I figured out why. He had finished his day's work and was ready ...
The American newsroom.
Jul 01, 2007; ... Kate Brooks, Polaris photographer ...
Prisoner 345: what happened to Al Jazeera's Sami al-Haj.
Jul 01, 2007; ... On December 15, 2001, early in the morning on the last day of Ramadan, a reporter and a cameraman from Al Jazeera arrived at the Pakistani town of Charman on the Afghanistan border, on their way to cover the American military operation. The reporter, Abdelhaq Sadah, was replacing a ...
Brian Tierney's grand experiment: fitting Philly pigs for wings.(chief executive officer of Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C.)
Jul 01, 2007; ... Pigs weren't flying around The Philadelphia Inquirer's historic white deco tower on North Broad Street--not yet anyway. But this was a gleeful day for Brian P. Tierney, even if he'd forfeited the element of surprise. For months, the chief executive officer of Philadelphia Media Holdings ...
Damage report: most of the two hundred journalists who left The Dallas Morning News landed on their feet. Those who stayed are not so sure.
Jul 01, 2007; ... Linda Stewart Ball left The Dallas Morning News in 2006, and she couldn't be professionally happier. "I'm extremely satisfied" says Ball, forty-seven, a reporter at the paper for fourteen years who accepted a buyout and became a freelance writer. "I love being my own boss." Reese Dunklin, ...
Burning the virtual shoe leather: does journalism in a computer world matter?
Jul 01, 2007; ... I was a novice. She--if she really were a she--was an expert. In a computer-generated world called Second Life, the bodies that defined me as the interviewer and her as the interviewee (our avatars) sat in a lounge rendered on my computer screen at my desk in New York City, and on her ...
Bohemian rhapsodies: Mary Heaton Vorse's labor reportage.(SECOND READ)
Jul 01, 2007; ... We talk of journalism that stands the test of time. Second Read is an exploration of that notion-journalists reflecting on books and other works that shaped their own writing, or whose lessons remain relevant. In April 1952, Harper's Magazine published "The Pirates' Nest of New ...
Room to roam: Rebecca Solnit's peripatetic education.(ESSAY)(Interview)
Jul 01, 2007; ... JUST WHAT KIND OF A WRITER IS REBECCA SOLNIT? IT'S NOT AN EASY QUESTION to answer, given the effortless way she crosses the borders of disciplines and genres. Her irrepressible curiosity has led her to investigate and reflect on a diverse range of subjects: landscapes both rural and urban, ...
The company man: an editor revisits his role in Plamegate.(Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources)(Book review)
Jul 01, 2007; ... Off the Record: The Press, the Government and the War over Anonymous Sources By Norman Pearlstine Farrar, Straus & Giroux 304 pages, $25 NORMAN PEARLSTINE WAS NOT A HAPPY camper. It was spring 2005, and for almost a year the editor-in-chief of Time Inc. had been wrestling with ...
Fountains, faucets, and leaks: Novak on the care and feeding of primary sources.(The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington)(Book review)
Jul 01, 2007; ... Prince of Darkness: Fifty Years of Reporting in Washington By Robert D. Novak Crown Forum 639 pages, $29.95 THE BEST STORY THAT BOB NOVAK broke during Watergate was about the eighteen-and-a-half-minute gap on a tape, and he got it the same way he got many of his scoops in those ...
When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina.(BRIEF ENCOUNTERS)(Book review)
Jul 01, 2007; ... When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina By W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston University of Chicago Press 263 pages, $22.50 WHEN HAS THE AMERICAN press ever prevented a war when the government wanted to have one? You ...
Editorial and Opinion: The Dwindling Marketplace of Ideas in Today's News.(BRIEF ENCOUNTERS)
Jul 01, 2007; ... Editorial and Opinion: The Dwindling Marketplace of Ideas in Today's News By Steven M. Hallock Praeger 195 pages, $49.95 WHO BOTHERS TO READ editorials any more? According to Steven M. Hallock, a lot of people do. Editorials--the traditional unsigned policy essays--are ...
Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women.(BRIEF ENCOUNTERS)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 01, 2007; ... Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scare Women By Caryl Rivers University Press of New England 168 pages, $24.95 CARYL RIVERS, THE PROLIFIC media critic from Boston University, returns here to a favorite theme--that news media employ dubious pop sociology to make women feel ...
Witness: One of the Great Foreign Correspondents of the Twentieth Century Tells Her Story.(BRIEF ENCOUNTERS)(Brief article)(Book review)
Jul 01, 2007; ... Witness: One of the Great Foreign Correspondents of the Twentieth Century Tells Her Story By Ruth Gruber Foreword by Richard Holbrooke Schocken Books 256 pages, $27.50 HERE COMES RUTH GRUBER again, now ninety-five years old, telling more of the story of her long life and career ....
A spoonful of sugar: how to explain the health care crisis.(Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis---and the People Who Pay the Price)(Book review)
Jul 01, 2007; ... Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis--And the People Who Pay the price By Jonathan Cohn Harper Collins 302 pages, $25.95 WHY ARE SO MANY OF THE MOST PRESSING subjects in national politics also the most tedious? Social Security reform is certainly right up ...
The Fourth of July.(THE RESEARCH REPORT)(Column)
Jul 01, 2007; ... In this column, the authors cull current scholarly writing about journalism for fresh ideas. Suggestions for possible mention are welcome at theresearchreport@cjr.org AT LEAST THREE MISJUDGMENTS ARE common around American Independence Day: thinking one's feet are faster than the ...