The Worst Kind of Toilet Humor

CJR.ORG — August 30, 2007
Getting worked up over anything in the New York Post can be a little dangerous. The paper does such a good job embracing its own campy tabloidiness that you risk sounding like a humorless prig for taking it seriously. That said, every once in a while it crosses so far [...]

What Gonzalez Didn’t Say

CJR.ORG — August 27, 2007
It came as no surprise this morning at Alberto Gonzales’s press conference announcing his resignation that the AG didn’t go into the details of why he was quitting. In fact, he seemed to honor our intelligence by not resorting to one of those patented excuses so familiar now, that he wanted [...]

Shafer Wishes Newspapers a Long Life

CJR.ORG — August 23, 2007
Jack Shafer does a great job in his latest Slate post pointing newspapers in the right direction. He captures a sentiment I know I’ve had for some time now, so I thought it was worth linking to. I’ll give you the gist. Because of the speed and immediacy of the Internet, [...]

A Mention in The Christian Science Monitor

A CJR.ORG piece about the Vanity Fair Africa issue was mentioned in a Christian Science Monitor article, “Star Power Brings Attention to Africa”:
A Columbia Journalism Review critique points at a similar trend in the July Vanity Fair special Africa issue. Guest edited by Bono himself, the issue features 20 different covers, each of a different [...]

Covering What Didn’t Happen

CJR.ORG — August 20, 2007
I remember listening to Bush’s second inaugural address and being impressed with the high ambitions, the utopian dream of remaking the world in our image and defeating tyranny everywhere. I also remember thinking how ludicrously impossible this was as a policy objective. The United States has interests and it has values. [...]

Massacre on A6

CJR.ORG — August 16, 2007
Maybe it’s because I saw the incredible documentary, “No End In Sight,” last night that I’m particularly sensitive, but it struck me as strange that the catastrophic synchronized bombings in northern Iraq yesterday, which were the deadliest since the war began, received such little coverage. They have already taken the lives [...]

The Leon Roars

CJR.ORG — August 15, 2007
I’m so thankful Leon Wieseltier is still around. It seems the intellectual world used to be full of people like him who could offer up the perfect quip at a second’s notice. People who could spit wit instead of vitriol, wrapping even their bitterness inside a sweet-tasting candy shell. They just [...]

Rudy’s Close Up

CJR.ORG — August 13, 2007
It was only a matter of time before the New Yorker offered up its definitive Rudy Giuliani profile. The in-depth portrait – mixing telling, personal anecdotes with background material, and deep analysis – is a staple of the magazine. But now that it’s here, in this week’s issue, a long, long, [...]

The Greenhouse Effect (Updated)

CJR.ORG — August 10, 2007
For Supreme Court buffs who watch C-SPAN, yesterday morning was one of disappointment. A promising panel discussion, “Covering the Court(s): Reporters on the Supreme Court Beat,” that included a bevy of court reporting superstars — like Charles Lane from The Washington Post and Dahlia Lithwick from Slate — was to be [...]

Subway Car Confessions

CJR.ORG — August 1, 2007
In a front-page story that must fall into the category of faux exposés (“fauxposés”?), The New York Times today tries to play gotcha with Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The self-proclaimed “short Jewish billionaire from New York,” has always boasted that when it comes to his championing of public transportation, he practices what [...]