The Magazine
March/April 2009
Articles
Feature
A Social-Network Solution
How investigative reporting got back on its feet
By Charles Lewis Mar 25, 2009 at 02:15 PM
Washington, D.C., 2014—It didn’t seem possible. Who would have thought, amid the newsroom devastation of the first decade of the... More
Feature
Old Hands, New Voice
How NGOs learned to do news
By Carroll Bogert Mar 24, 2009 at 05:55 PM
NEW YORK, 2014—Back in 2009, the future of international reporting looked bleak indeed. Several big U.S. newspapers had shut down... More
Feature
Unchaining the Monitor
How an early Web-first strategy worked out
By John Yemma Mar 23, 2009 at 06:07 PM
BOSTON, 2014—In October 2008, The Christian Science Monitor announced it was shifting to a “Web-first, multiplatform strategy.” The bulk of... More
Feature
So Cool
How an economic weather map changed the climate
By Adam Davidson Mar 22, 2009 at 08:30 AM
Washington , D.C., 2014—The economic weather map, which started out as a gimmick, changed everything. It showed us how the... More
Feature
The New Niche
How tax incentives and technology came to the rescue
By David S. Bennahum Mar 21, 2009 at 08:00 AM
Washington, D.C., 2014—By 2009, we were at an impasse. The news business—newspapers in particular—was collapsing, and there was no obvious... More
Essay
In the Foothills of Change
Foreign coverage seems doomed, but it’s only just begun
By John Maxwell Hamilton Mar 20, 2009 at 12:36 PM
Some months ago, while exploring files in the nearly empty, ink-blackened basement of the old New York Times building on... More
Feature
No Profit, No Problem
How a new city daily (on newsprint!) rolled
By Michael Stoll Mar 20, 2009 at 08:00 AM
San Francisco, 2014—With the collapse of the business model undergirding the tradition of muckraking journalism—and the double-digit profit margins it... More
Feature
Rise of the Reader
How books got wings
By Peter Osnos Mar 19, 2009 at 04:20 PM
New York, 2014—Back in 2009, the headlines about book sales and the future of the publishing industry looked about as... More
Feature
Two Tents
How Politico might work out. Or not.
By John F. Harris Mar 18, 2009 at 08:00 AM
ARLINGTON, VA, 2014—The quirky assignment handed down by CJR’s editors—to imagine the future as though observing the past—brings to mind... More
Feature
Get Off the Bus
The future of pro-am journalism
By Amanda Michel Mar 5, 2009 at 07:00 AM
Standing before a fawning crowd at a private fundraiser in San Francisco last April, Senator Barack Obama’s usually finely calibrated... More
Feature
Suffering in Silence
Ground Zero’s other victims
By Anthony Depalma Mar 4, 2009 at 06:09 PM
Even now, more than seven years later, images of that day remain frightfully raw, in large measure because a legion... More
Essay
The Sarcastic Times
For Rachel Maddow and the other ironic anchors, absurdity is serious stuff
By Alissa Quart Mar 3, 2009 at 08:37 PM
On a Wednesday night in December, Rachel Maddow, in a toreador-style black jacket, waits for her show to start. She... More
Feature
Good Morning, Postville!
An unlikely thorn in Agriprocessors’ side
By Nathaniel Popper Mar 3, 2009 at 05:56 PM
As a new work week began in Postville, Iowa, last November, Jeff Abbas, with his bushy gray beard and ample... More
Cover Story
Roll the Dice
How one journalist gambled on the future of news
By Charles M. Sennott Mar 3, 2009 at 07:00 AM
Nine months. We’d been at this project for nine months, beginning with a few sketches on a whiteboard about how... More
Departments
Language Corner
Snark Hunt
The search for the true meaning
By Merrill Perlman Apr 9, 2009 at 06:45 PM
Sometimes, dictionaries just don’t get it. this one will define a word one way; that one will define the same... More
Editorial
Reasons to Believe
Journalism’s search for a support system
By The Editors Mar 26, 2009 at 08:00 AM
There is a lot of death talk around journalism lately. A case in point that stuck in our craw was... More
Short Takes
Craigslist = Straw Man
Tracking advertising revenue in the digital age
By Steven S. Ross Mar 5, 2009 at 10:54 AM
Data gathered by the Newspaper Association of America show a savage decline in newspaper ad revenue in the third... More
Short Takes
One Shot
A Q & A with Iranian photographer Jamshid Bayrami
By Jane Gottlieb Mar 4, 2009 at 06:31 PM
In 1999, an Iranian college student and an Iranian news photographer crossed paths briefly but momentously in Tehran during... More
Short Takes
Dutch Treat
The Netherlands’s newspaper economic crisis
By Hélène Schilders Mar 3, 2009 at 06:18 PM
After a cry for help from the print media, the Dutch government has established an €8 million ($10.2 million) fund... More
Darts and Laurels
Darts and Laurels
Send tips and suggestions to dartsandlaurels@cjr.org
By Katia Bachko Mar 1, 2009 at 10:27 AM
Laurel to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, The Tennessean, and The Post and Courier for strong reporting on the coal-ash... More
Ideas & Reviews
Review
Buyer Beware
A history of redlining and racism in Chicago
By Helene Stapinski Mar 2, 2009 at 05:34 PM
Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black America | By Beryl Satter | Metropolitan Books | 512... More
Review
Picture Perfect?
In three new graphic histories, the facts get a visual boost
By Richard Gehr Mar 1, 2009 at 05:48 PM
08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail | By Michael Crowley And Dan Goldman | Three Rivers Press |... More
Review
Brief Encounters
Short reviews of books about Fred Friendly and America’s early newspapermen
By James Boylan Mar 1, 2009 at 04:00 PM
Friendlyvision: Fred Friendly and the Rise and Fall of Television Journalism | By Ralph Engelman, Foreword by Morley Safer |... More
The Research Report
Luces in the Sky
Covering big pharma in the age of marketing
By Michael Schudson & Danielle Haas Mar 1, 2009 at 03:11 PM
When Time magazine went culinary trend-spotting in July 1951, it bypassed usual suspects like new ice-cream flavors and found a... More
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- « More Back Issues

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.
