The Magazine
July/August 2011
Articles
Reports
Life Near the Center of the Story
Istanbul is the ‘It’ location for enterprising freelance journalists
By Nathan Deuel Jul 19, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Last summer, my wife became NPR’s correspondent in Baghdad. I couldn’t join her there, so we decided I’d move... More
Feature
John Paton’s Big Bet
Will “Digital First” bring home the bacon?
By Lauren Kirchner Jul 14, 2011 at 02:51 PM
Update: On July 14, 2011, Journal Register Company announced that it had been purchased by Alden Global Capital for... More
Feature
The Great Right Hype
Tucker Carlson and his Daily Caller
By Joel Meares Jul 13, 2011 at 06:00 AM
When Tucker Carlson took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2009, he opened by inviting... More
Cover Story
News for the World
A proposal for a globalized era: an American World Service
By Lee C. Bollinger Jul 11, 2011 at 06:00 AM
I would be surprised if in future decades, people did not say that the end of the twentieth century and... More
Cover Story
Big Bird to the Rescue?
Public television remains largely indifferent to calls to boost serious news coverage
By Elizabeth Jensen Jul 7, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Representative Earl Blumenauer stood before a microphone outside the Capitol building in February to make a passionate plea for continued... More
Reports
How to Cover the Money Race
A Q&A with money-and-politics expert Dave Levinthal
By Liz Cox Barrett Jul 5, 2011 at 05:58 PM
If 2010’s $3.6 billion midterm elections are any gauge, reporters tasked with following the money in campaign 2012 face a... More
Cover Story
Signal and Noise
Trying to follow global news in America, a newcomer finds that something is missing
By Emily Bell Jul 5, 2011 at 02:00 PM
If you wished to see a vivid illustration of how the broadcast news media in the US are perceived in... More
Cover Story
The Future of Public Television
Can Public Television News Step Up?
By The Editors Jul 5, 2011 at 02:00 PM
Television has long been our most popular news medium, the format that unites us and brings the world to our... More
Departments
Editorial
The Kitchen-Table Connection
How to find—and serve—readers beyond Washington
By The Editors Jul 28, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Toward the end of last year, The Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery advised her readers that “a surprisingly broad consensus... More
Darts and Laurels
Darts and Laurels
Meet Brian Condra, the media’s favorite “everyman”
By Lauren Kirchner Jul 27, 2011 at 06:00 AM
In late 2008, as the world financial system went into collapse, a shocking self-dealing scandal toppled the Anglo Irish Bank.... More
Currents
Hard Numbers
Some stats and figures on the news industry
By The Editors Jul 5, 2011 at 05:07 PM
41 percent of the US news media workforce who are women 23.3 percent of top-level US news media managers who... More
Language Corner
Almost Famous
Confusion over “infamy” and “notoriety” abounds
By Merrill Perlman Jul 5, 2011 at 05:05 PM
You probably don’t want to become “infamous.” but you may want to be “notorious.” The adjective “infamous” has traditionally meant... More
Currents
All Politics is Local
Highlights from CJR.org’s News Frontier Database
By Michael Meyer Jul 5, 2011 at 05:01 PM
One of the most important questions facing the news industry in its search to sustain journalism online is how the... More
Editorial
Editor’s Note
CJR’s Joel Meares wins a Mirror Award; goodbye to our 2010-2011 fellows
By Mike Hoyt Jul 5, 2011 at 04:52 PM
Prizes—oh, how we love ‘em! CJR’s Joel Meares has taken home our latest: a win in the Best Profile/Digital Media... More
Letters to the Editor
Notes From Our Online Readers
Readers add to CJR’s own “Words We Shouldn’t Say” list
By The Editors Jul 5, 2011 at 04:50 PM
When New York Times Magazine editor Hugo Lindgren posted a list of “words we don’t say” to the magazine’s 6th... More
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
Readers respond to our May/June story by Pamela Newkirk, “The Not-So-Great Migration”
By The Editors Jul 5, 2011 at 04:35 PM
Black and White Permit me to offer an amplifying note to Pamela Newkirk’s trenchant take on the migration of some... More
Currents
Kling’s Warning
A Q&A with Minnesota Public Radio’s first CEO as he steps down
By Joel Meares Jul 5, 2011 at 12:21 PM
In 1967, in exchange for free graduate-school tuition, Bill Kling agreed to help Minnesota’s St. John’s University start a... More
Currents
Silence Across the Sinai
Some topics remain tense in post-Mubarak Egypt
By Lisa Goldman Jul 5, 2011 at 12:20 PM
Sometime in late March, at a Cairo protest, a prominent Egyptian activist pretended he was meeting me for the... More
Opening Shot
Opening Shot
Jill Abramson, the first woman at the helm of The New York Times
By The Editors Jul 5, 2011 at 11:32 AM
“OMG. It’s official, women run the world,” wrote Dennis M. Madison, a New York Times reader who posted a... More
Ideas & Reviews
Review
Brief Encounters
Short reviews of books on newspaper publishers
By James Boylan Aug 27, 2011 at 05:04 PM
The Magnificent Medills: The McCormick-Patterson Dynasty: America’s Royal Family of Journalism During a Century of Turbulent Splendor By Megan McKinney... More
Second Read
Punk’s Prophet
Greil Marcus’s seminal work Ranters and Crowd Pleasers: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-92
By Tim Marchman Jul 25, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Discounting cash-in reunions, studio sessions with bank robber Ronnie Biggs, and the like, The Sex Pistols last played in... More
Review
The Hatchet’s Tale
James O’Shea, Tribune’s one-time man in Los Angeles, tells all in his new book
By Kevin Roderick Jul 14, 2011 at 06:00 AM
The Deal From Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers by James O’Shea | Public Affairs |... More
The Lower Case
Sultan woman with dog’s head taken to hospital
Headlines that editors probably wish they could take back
By The Editors Jul 5, 2011 at 08:14 PM
Utah: Incompetent sex offender freed —The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, MA) 4/8/11 Navy SEALs Responsible For Getting Osama bin Laden To... More
The Research Report
The Climate for Science Reporting
A new report shows a surge in climate change coverage
By Michael Schudson and Julia Sonnevend Jul 5, 2011 at 08:06 PM
Early in December 2009, politicians, media representatives, and NGO officials queued up outside the Bella Center from eight in the... More
Review
Let’s Do the Time Warp Again
A review of Simon Reynolds’s Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past
By Noel Murray Jul 5, 2011 at 07:30 PM
Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past by Simon Reynolds | Faber and Faber, Inc. | 458 pages, $16... More
Review
Bang Bang Off Target
Hollywood gets war reporters wrong again
By Judith Matloff Jul 5, 2011 at 12:31 PM
The Bang Bang Club, written and directed by Steven Silver; starring Ryan Phillippe, Taylor Kitsch, Malin Akerman, Frank Rautenbach, and... More

New survey reveals everything you think about freelancing is true - Data from Project Word quantifies challenges of freelance investigative reporting
Why one editor won’t run any more op-eds by the Heritage Foundation’s top economist - A reply to Paul Krugman on state taxes and job growth made some incorrect claims
Why we ‘stave off’ colds - It all started with wine
The New Republic, then and now - Tallying the staff turnover at the overhauled magazine
Why serious journalism can coexist with audience-pleasing content - Legacy media organizations should experiment with digital platforms while continuing to publish hard news

Email blasts from CJR writers and editors

The rise of feelings journalism (TNR)
“Bloom engaged in an increasingly popular style of writing, which I’ve discussed on my blog before, which I call “feelings journalism.” It involves a writer making an argument based on what they imagine someone else is thinking, what they feel may be another person’s feelings. The realm of fact, of reporting, has been left behind.”
Things a war correspondent should never say (WSJ)
“The correspondent retelling war stories surely knows that fellow correspondents had faced the same dangers or worse”
The joyful, bloody media circus of bringing down Brian Williams (Bloomberg)
“In the media, we eat our own for sport”
On WaPo trying to interview a cow (National Journal)
“‘I wasn’t milked on the White House lawn by a strange man,’ The Washington Post—the venerable institution that would later come to break the Watergate scandal and win 48 Pulitzers—quoted her, a farm animal, as saying”

Greg Marx discusses democracy and news with Tom Rosenstiel of the American Press Institute

CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
ACEsTooHigh.com – Reporting on the science, education, and policy surrounding childhood trauma
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
