Q: How can you tell when politicians are lying? A: When they say they aren’t. As we wade deeper into the silly swamp that is Electoral Trainwreck ’08 I realize that most nights I wind up giggling myself to sleep. My old friend Disraeli famously observed that people tend to get the government they deserve, and as I’ve noted before,
Read moreIf you’re following America’s electoral theater at all, you know that we have a candidate with a preacher problem. And that the candidate in question has been put in the uncomfortable position of having to repudiate some of said preacher’s remarks (while not alienating those voters in the flock who actually, you know, agree with what the Reverend was saying).
Read moreApparently what we reported on last week was just the tip of the iceberg. According to our friend Brad Jacobson at MediaBloodhound, things got even more interesting after the cameras were turned off. CHARLES GIBSON, ABC ANCHOR: …OK, so let’s continue. “Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come. Corporation tee-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday. Man, you been a
Read moreI missed last night’s “debate” between Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. From what I can tell this morning, that was the smartest thing I did all day. I’ve read a good bit about it and seen some video and it looks like what transpired in Philadelphia may have been a new low-water mark in American journalism. Let’s see
Read moreOur friend at the Niagara Falls Reporter, the Pulitzer-winning John Hanchette, today comments and expands on Denny’s analysis concerning the need for a new business model for news organizations. Denny’s post and Hanch’s follow-on, taken together, represent about as coherent a starting point for the discussion of the future of news as I’ve seen, and while I’m certain that no
Read moreThe header on the story reads this way: CU’s Campus Press Fights for Independence. The subhead is equally on-point: A contentious faculty meeting points to independence for CU-Boulder’s student newspaper — but at what cost? But at that point the journalism train jumps the tracks, because the first couple grafs eschew any consideration of the alleged story itself in favor
Read moreFinal part in a series. How appropriate that a publication whose launch was dominated by photography of the technological wonder of the day should end its run with an equally impressive tribute to mankind’s latest technological accomplishment. As noted earlier, LIFE’s final issue was released a scant three weeks after Apollo 17, NASA’s last trip to the moon, and in
Read morePart four in a series. The terrible specter of nuclear annihilation was now clear in the American mind, a condition that LIFE acknowledged and addressed. But in the months that followed V-J Day an odd thing happened, as military testing of the new weaponry provided an opportunity for bomb-watchers to indulge their awe without having to confront the frightful context
Read morePart three in a series. In an age and a culture dominated by scientism, the word “sample†tends to invoke the adjectival “representative,†and I cannot begin to imagine culling a meaningful representative sample from LIFE’s 400-plus issues. Still, it seems important to devote a few pages to what happened with LIFE and technology between the Fort Peck Dam and
Read morePart two in a series. As I suggested in Part One, the messianic/utopian view of science and technology attributed to LIFE Magazine is consistent with an ideological bent that traces its lineage to the dawn of the Enlightenment in Europe. Francis Bacon’s highly influential New Atlantis, first published in 1626, recounts the narrator’s fictional shipwreck on the shores of Bensalem,
Read morePimpin’ Journalism ain’t easy. Odd hours, low pay, audiences that don’t appreciate the effort you put into making their world a better place. One of these days we’ll do an SVR on journalists, but today we’re talking about TV reporters, and yeah, they can have it rough, too. Take this guy. It’s not bad enough that he’s 130 years old
Read moreThe left blogogentsia is all blowed up this afternoon over the story Martin wrote about earlier today. Since that post, more info has come to light that makes Sandeep Kaushik, the campaign spokesman in question, look considerably less guilty and that makes the cub reporter in training look like somebody who walked into the room knowing what story he was
Read moreThe results of the latest S&R poll are in. Readers were asked “Which major press entity do you regard as the most credible source of news?” 1. Other/None of the above (70) 2. BBC (64) 3. PBS (39) 4. CNN (15) 5. New York Times (11) 6. Washington Post (6) NBC/MSNBC (6) Wall Street Journal (6) 9. FOX News (4)
Read moreI’ve written in the past about the problem of bad science reporting in the US. The short version: very few American reporters have enough grounding in statistics and the sciences to accurately parse the claims of quantitative research, and as a result they often misrepresent what studies actually say. This is an indictment of, among other things, university journalism school
Read moreIn a NY Times op-ed today, prominent social analyst Gloria Steinem weighs in on America’s persistent gender and politics problem: Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and,
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lullaby pit 