November/December 2011

50th Anniversary

By The Editors Sep 20, 2012 at 11:55 AM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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

Why Bill O'Reilly can play hardball on his war zone story (5)

Why scientists often hate records requests (4)

Showdown over the future of independent documentaries at PBS (2)

The LA Times goes deep on superbug outbreak (2)

Why Jan Brewer is sounding like James Risen (2)

Tweets by @CJR

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”

Bloggingheads

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

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