When Good News Trumps Bad News – And Vice Versa

CJR.ORG — August 31, 2005
It was somehow fitting that the Census Bureau’s latest poverty numbers came out yesterday. After all, on the front page we were provided with a pretty extreme illustration of what it means to be poor in this country: In New Orleans, those living below the poverty were also those disproportionately disappearing [...]

A Little Transparency, Please

CJR.ORG — August 30, 2005
In recent days, Peter Galbraith has become a go-to analyst on Iraq’s constitutional squabbles. By his own account, as he told Brian Lehrer on WNYC yesterday, he sat through nearly all the testy negotiations over the final draft.
His voice is particularly credible because he is emphatically supporting the new constitution after [...]

Fire Ants Eat Citizens, Just Before Toxic Soup Burns City to Ground!

CJR.ORG — August 29, 2005
Clearly, New Orleans is in bad shape. As of 2:00 p.m. today, levees were breaking, winds well over 100 mph were whipping through the bars and bordellos of the French Quarter, and the Superdome, where 10,000 were taking refuge, had suffered a power outage and some roof damage.
Is it possible to [...]

Who Are Those People?

CJR.ORG — August 29, 2005
As thousands of weary and anxious people streamed into New Orleans’ Superdome in advance of Hurricane Katrina yesterday, dragging their few pieces of luggage behind them, one fact went strangely missing in most news reports: they are poor.
USA Today’s coverage was typical. In its lead story, an AP dispatch from Matt [...]

Let’s Report More, Take Credit Less

CJR.ORG — August 22, 2005
Journalists love thinking that they can save lives. What could be more purifying, more self-affirming, after days spent wading in muck and sensation, than the feeling that, like doctors, you too can stave off death?
When a skeletal, dying African baby appears on the front page, we are being told to look, [...]

Saving Perspective for the Editorial Page

CJR.ORG — August 18, 2005
Epic drama like this doesn’t come around every day.
Jews barricaded in a synagogue, many wrapped in prayer shawls, refusing to leave. Settler women thrusting babies into the faces of young, weeping soldiers sent to evacuate them. Whole families being dragged out of their homes, while their children stand by, wailing.
It’s irresistible. [...]