Naming the Civil War...
As GWB steadfastly resists calling the conflict in Iraq a “civil war” despite the pronouncements of many of his own current and ex-military advisers, media outlets also grapple with the nomenclature. E&P reports that starting Monday The Los Angeles Times, NBC and MSNBC, will all be using that...
The Greatest Story Ever Sold - By Frank ...
In a review of NYT Columnist Frank Rich’s new book, The Greatest Story Never Told, writer and now Bard professor Ian Buruma sums up some of the general problems with current journalism - not startlingly original but neatly expressed: THERE may be one other reason for the fumbling (over WMD...
Fundamentally adversarial...
Maybe my post yesterday was too pessimistic. Perhaps the controversy over the Pulitzers will round support for a press that is taking itself more seriously. As the NYT reports: Some observers on the press side saw the awards as a recognition that the split between the government and the press, which...
Treasonable journalism...
There has been quite bit written about Pulitzers for Treason by right wing columnists in the US, following the Times‘ award for breaking the story about the NSA domestic wiretaps. But MarketWatch media columnist Jon Friedman got a shock when all of the reader responses to a recent column were...
The ghost of Judy Miller...
Arianna Huffington has been one of the most trenchant critics of Judith Miller throughtout the whole Plamegate affair, sometimes hysterically so, but her latest post is all sense. She suggests that a recent Times editorial on Scooter Libby which commented that the latest round of “this messy...
Creating Neutral Experts...
The Revealer has a good critique of newspaper sourcing practices when quoting “experts” from think tanks. The NYT acknowledge in a story today that they were caught out in their earlier reporting of The Lincoln Group’s activities in Iraq. The Lincoln Group a PR outfit with ten million...
Answering back...
Great article in the NYT by Katherine Seelye on the way the internet is changing the relationships between sources and journalists, between the writers and those being written about. It is a great article because it does what good journalism does, it provides a range of points of view while still being...