There’s a new list out ranking the 20 most beautiful college campuses in America. These things are always subjective, and they can start more arguments than they settle, but I have to admit that this is a not-bad list. I haven’t been to all the honored campuses, but I am familiar with several of them. Heck, I hold degrees from
Read moreTen years ago, at the turn of the millennium, Nostraslammy took a stab at predicting the 21st Century, with a promise to check back every ten years to see how the prognostications were turning out. Odds are good I won’t be able to do a review every ten years until 2100, but I figure I’m probably good through 2030, at
Read morePart four in a series. I hope that by this stage of the discussion a few fundamental points are evident: Traditional journalism – the institutional form that most of us grew up with and the codes that governed it – is in decline. For a variety of factors it has lost (or is rapidly losing) its place as the dominant
Read morePart three in a series. In the aftermath of the 2004 election I wrote a fairly jaded op-ed for Editor & Publisher lamenting just how badly our brave new world of electronic media had failed us. I said, in part: In the “marketplace of ideas” model that gave rise to the First Amendment, rationally self-interested citizens would enter the market
Read morePart two in a series. Let’s begin with a brief look at how Americans view the press. A 2004 Gallup Poll says “Americans rate the trustworthiness of journalists at about the level of politicians and as only slightly more credible than used-car salesmen.” Only about one in five Americans “believe journalists have high ethical standards, ranking them below auto mechanics
Read moreIt doesn’t seem controversial to suggest that journalism in America (and beyond) is in trouble, and there are any number of factors contributing to the malaise. A particular concern of mine has been the decline in the efficacy of what we’ll call “objective journalism” – that is, the institutionalized press that dominated newsgathering and production throughout the better part of
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lullaby pit 