Latest Blogs
Editor & Publisher's Wishful Thinking
Once upon a time, Editor and Publisher, as "America’s Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry," had a certain degree of respectability. These days, conspiratorial speculation and advocacy are every bit as important as fact, and the byline "By E&P Staff" means that anything to follow needs to be parsed very carefully to distill facts from wishful, often overtly partisan projection. A…
NBC: Everybody Should be Mad About Miers Nomination
On this evening’s “NBC Nightly News,” Andrea Mitchell seemed to be advancing a position that would make both Republicans and Democrats angry about the president’s nomination of Harriet Miers to replace Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor.Mitchell starts her segment with a statement from Texas Supreme Court justice Nathan Hecht that is clearly designed to raise the ire of pro-choice…
New Orleans: A Tale of Two Cities...and Parties
The following two reports from CNN (videos to follow) give us an amazing contrast between the efficiency of business in America, and the inefficiency of government. Today, the city of New Orleans announced that it is laying off 3,000 government employees, or 40 percent of the city's payroll, due to budget constraints. By contrast, in the same city hit by the same hurricanes, small and large…
AP: “Streisand Brings Anti-War Sentiment to Music
The Associated Press published an article today about Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb’s new album, with much focus given to one song that contains an anti-war theme, as well as Streisand’s political leanings:“Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb hadn't worked together in 25 years. But Gibb still knew the best way to express what Streisand was thinking -- especially when it came to the war in Iraq.”“‘I…
Times Joins the Anti-Corporate Bandwagon
Magazines positive portrayal downplays criticism and depicts Spitzerism as what the Democrats need.
Newsweek's Alter: "Corrupt Zealot" DeLay, "Fringe" Running House
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter launched a vicious attack, on Congressman Tom DeLay's ideology, in this week's magazine. Promoting it, on Monday's Imus in the Morning on MSNBC, he charged that "it's the first time in 200 years that the House of Representatives has been run for a whole decade, or almost a decade, by a corrupt zealot." That matched the language in his one-page piece, "Tom DeLay's House…
Grooming Hillary Clinton's "Centrist Crusade" for
Mrs. Triangulation is the title of New York Times contributing writer Matt Bai's profile of Sen. Hillary Clinton (on the cover the article is referred to even less plausibly as "Hillary's Centrist Crusade"). Bai has apparently been taken in by Clinton's centering propaganda, as has the Times in general: It's coverage of the senator has consisted largely of portraying her as a safe centrist and…
Editor: I'm Not Liberal, I Just Act Like One
One of my favorite pastimes is listening to liberal journalists tell me they aren't liberal. I find it very similar to listening to an alcoholic explain how they are just social drinkers. In the end, the conversation can be closed simply by asking "who did you vote for in the last ten elections?" That goes for the journalist or the drunk, by the way. So it was with great glee that I read editor…