The Magazine
November/December 2011
50th Anniversary
Articles
Feature
The Moments
Fifty years of media culture, as captured by Magnum photographers
By The Editors Dec 13, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Magnum Photos, founded during the most glorious age of photojournalism, has always represented a dream of how journalism can be... More
Feature
Power of Dispassion
Alan Schwarz changed football
By Greg Marx Dec 2, 2011 at 12:45 PM
On October 17, 2010, the Philadelphia Eagles hosted the Atlanta Falcons before a crowd of nearly 70,000. The game... More
Feature
Immediate Returns
Ben Smith is not an old-school political reporter
By Liz Cox Barrett Dec 2, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Thirty-five-year-old Ben Smith reports on national politics for Politico from a rent-a-desk writers’ workspace on the first floor of... More
Feature
A Reporter in Full
Isabel Wilkerson listens
By Pamela Newkirk Dec 1, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Isabel Wilkerson spent most of her journalism career at The New York Times where, as Chicago bureau chief, she... More
Feature
Tenacious
Dana Priest wants to show you how the world works
By Jill Drew Nov 30, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Washington Post reporter Dana Priest says she has always had an insatiable curiosity. At age six, she liked climbing... More
Feature
What He Knew
Anthony Shadid saw the deeper story in Iraq
By Terry McDermott Nov 29, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Anthony Shadid is the most honored foreign correspondent of his generation: two Pulitzer Prizes, a George Polk Award, an... More
Feature
Sustained Outrage
Ken Ward Jr. stayed home to make a difference
By Brent Cunningham Nov 28, 2011 at 10:00 AM
Since he began reporting full-time, in 1991, Ken Ward Jr. has embodied the credo of Ned Chilton III, The... More
Feature
Just Ask Questions
Stanley Nelson searches for truth in the past
By Hank Klibanoff Nov 22, 2011 at 09:00 AM
Stanley Nelson is the editor of the weekly Concordia Sentinel, a 5,000-circulation newspaper in Ferriday, Louisiana. Nelson, head of... More
Feature
A Different Life
Andrea Bruce was a community journalist in Iraq
By Michael Kamber Nov 21, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Andrea Bruce is a freelance photojournalist, currently based in Afghanistan, whose powerful documentary work attempts to connect people across... More
Feature
The Reporter’s Voice
Seven accomplished reporters and one great photographer talk about what they do, how they do it, and why.
By The Editors Nov 21, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Since 1961, when CJR was born, journalism has undergone all manner of seismic shifts, from hot type to wireless... More
Reports
In Our Time
CJR’s editor takes stock
By Mike Hoyt Nov 15, 2011 at 06:00 AM
On my first day at the Columbia Journalism Review, the editors were reading page proofs for an upcoming issue, and... More
Feature
The Newspaper That Almost Seized the Future
The San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley’s own daily, was poised to ride the digital whirlwind. What happened?
By Michael Shapiro Nov 10, 2011 at 06:00 AM
1. ‘It Was Written’ Randall Keith and I are talking about the past when his boss, Dave Butler, slides... More
Reports
Pulitzer’s Magazine?
Our founder reflects on CJR’s roots
By James Boylan Nov 9, 2011 at 09:00 AM
Here is the best and here is the worst story of the day. . . . Here is the wrong of the day; here... More
Fiftieth Anniversary
A Plea for the Polls
‘The press seems to behave as if it were operating in a simpler yesterday’
By Elmo Roper Nov 8, 2011 at 05:54 PM
Elmo Roper was one of the early giants of American opinion polling. His survey work for Fortune magazine, beginning in... More
Fiftieth Anniversary
Why a Review of Journalism?
The arguments for a critical journal far outweigh the hazards
By The Editors Nov 1, 2011 at 01:53 PM
What journalism needs, it has been said time and again, is more and better criticism. There have been abundant... More
Feature
Through the Years
Five decades of journalism, from the pages of CJR
By Clint Hendler Oct 27, 2011 at 06:15 PM
1961 • Walter Lippmann writes three columns based on more than four hours of interviews with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.... More
Feature
The Moments
Fifty years of media culture, as captured by Magnum photographers
By The Editors Oct 27, 2011 at 10:40 AM
Magnum Photos, founded during the most glorious age of photojournalism, has always represented a dream of how journalism can be... More
Departments
Language Corner
Homegrown
The living language
By Merrill Perlman Dec 7, 2011 at 10:00 AM
To look back at the early years of the Columbia Journalism Review is to look at how we used... More
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
Reader’s congratulations, and reactions from our September/October issue
By The Editors Nov 28, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Fifty Candles Journalism the world over is in the midst of profound, transformative change, and it is not yet clear... More
Opening Shot
Opening Shot
Here’s to another fifty
By The Editors Nov 28, 2011 at 06:00 AM
C JR’s debut was mostly greeted with “bouquets,” though a few readers, our second issue noted, “reacted with unblemished hostility.”... More
Letters to the Editor
Notes From Our Online Readers
Readers respond to Erika Fry’s “Escape from Thailand”
By The Editors Nov 28, 2011 at 06:00 AM
In September, Erika Fry, a CJR assistant editor, wrote of her “Escape from Thailand,” an ordeal that began when she... More
Editorial
Chairman’s Note
By Victor Navasky Nov 22, 2011 at 09:00 AM
As I write this, every day seems to yield a new story about something called Occupy Wall Street. I have... More
Editorial
Editor’s Note
By Mike Hoyt Nov 22, 2011 at 09:00 AM
This is a handsome issue, no? Two entities are responsible for that. The first is Point Five Design, our art... More
Currents
Hard Numbers
Markers in a changing news landscape, from sourcing to salaries to cyberspace
By Alysia Santo Nov 4, 2011 at 09:00 AM
Typewriter sales and service shops in the Manhattan phone book: 341 (1961) 320 (1986) 25 (2011) Computer sales and service... More
Darts and Laurels
Darts and Laurels
An exercise in humility: fifty years of journalism’s lesser angels
By Brent Cunningham Nov 2, 2011 at 09:00 AM
An accounting of fifty years’ worth of Darts is hardly a balm for an industry careening through a wrenching transition.... More
Editorial
The Complications of our Age
What we want is a journalism to match them
By The Editors Nov 1, 2011 at 01:53 PM
When the idea of a publication to be called the Columbia Journalism Review first came up, our founding editor... More
Ideas & Reviews
The Lower Case
The Lower Case
Bad News!
By The Editors Dec 8, 2011 at 06:00 AM
Editorial Page Almost a Garbage Dump— Delta (BC) Optimist 3/11/81 Newsmen Threaten Exposure— The Guild Reporter 7/24/70 Readers: We invent... More
Essay
A Mad Libs Keynote
The future of journalism? Just fill in the blanks.
By Justin Peters Dec 6, 2011 at 06:00 AM
. More
Essay
What Can I Build Today?
Online startups can win the future by staying in the present
By Michael Meyer Nov 18, 2011 at 09:00 AM
There are hundreds of local and regional online news startups in America, but only about five that media observers discuss... More
Essay
On Facebook and Freedom
Why journalists should not surrender to the Walmarts of the web
By Justin Peters Nov 17, 2011 at 06:00 AM
In September of this year, the Internet briefly burbled with the news that Facebook, the market leader in workday-wastery, would... More
Essay
Money Changes Everything
Independent journalism can’t lean on a few rich donors
By Tom McGeveran Nov 16, 2011 at 06:00 AM
In lower Manhattan as I write, thousands of protesters, recently joined by some unions, local New York politicians, and a... More
Essay
What About Modesto?
The digital-news parade threatens to pass some communities by
By The Editors Nov 14, 2011 at 06:00 AM
In Modesto, California, the need for news far exceeds the current supply. A city of 200,000 with one midsized... More
Essay
Modesto, California
By the numbers
By The Editors Nov 14, 2011 at 05:00 AM
Population 201,165 Eighteenth-largest city in California; 107th-largest city in the US, between Des Moines, Iowa, and Fayetteville, North Carolina... More
Essay
School’s Out
A lost generation of journalists
By Laura Paull Nov 14, 2011 at 05:00 AM
A journalist walks across the Modesto Junior College campus in the mid-1990s and peeks in the newspaper office, where dedicated... More
Essay
Class Struggle
Tech won’t end the digital divide
By Jen Schradie Nov 14, 2011 at 05:00 AM
Like many American cities, Modesto has been decimated by local media layoffs and cutbacks in recent years. Journalists have more... More
Essay
Just Press On
Templates for Anytown, USA
By Michael Stoll Nov 14, 2011 at 05:00 AM
Nic Roethlisberger and Dhyana Levey now live in the foggy Richmond District of San Francisco, flanked by the Pacific Ocean... More
Essay
Plowing Ahead
A farm newspaper’s future
By Kristin Platts Nov 14, 2011 at 05:00 AM
Agriculture is and always has been the backbone of the California economy. Last year, Stanislaus County exported agriculture products to... More
Essay
A Paperless Bee
Making the future online
By Rusty Coats Nov 14, 2011 at 05:00 AM
In 1993, I was driving home to Modesto after covering a Bay Area conference on cryptography, having spent the past... More
Second Read
How the Past Saw the Present
The future of journalism has always been on journalism’s mind
By Megan Garber Nov 11, 2011 at 06:00 AM
CJR knew about the iPad a good fifteen years before there was an iPad to know about. In a... More
Essay
Confidence Game
The limited vision of the news gurus
By Dean Starkman Nov 8, 2011 at 06:00 AM
“The question that mass amateurization poses to traditional media is ‘What happens when the costs of reproduction and distribution go... More
Review
A Reading List for Future Journalists
By The Editors Nov 3, 2011 at 12:09 AM
We asked some of our favorite journalists, scholars, and critics to recommend books and other works that could help... More
Essay
It’s a Rall World
A series of thoughts on our media future from cartoonist Ted Rall
By Ted Rall Oct 27, 2011 at 01:28 PM
. More
- « September / October 2011
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- « May / June 2011
- « March / April 2011
- « January / February 2011
- « November / December 2010
- « September / October 2010
- « July / August 2010
- « May / June 2010
- « March/ April 2010
- « January / February 2010
- « November / December 2009
- « September / October 2009
- « 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.
