November/December 2012

Articles

Questionable taste

Ricky Gervais describes the pleasures and pitfalls of being interviewed

By Cyndi Stivers Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

As his Golden Globes hosting gigs have shown, Ricky Gervais is not afraid to say what he thinks. So... More

Rules of the game

The sometimes nauseating, often fun, and always absurd life of a movie publicist

By Reid Rosefelt Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

I’ve always regretted that I never thanked Goldie Hawn for launching my career as a publicist. Goldie became my... More

In cold type

When Truman Capote set out to profile Marlon Brando for The New Yorker in 1957, he knew just how to set his traps

By Douglas McCollam Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

One morning in January, 1957, Josh Logan, the veteran Broadway producer and Hollywood director, came down from his room into... More

Gross misunderstanding

What journalists miss about the movie business

By Edward Jay Epstein Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

The vast preponderance of news reporting about Hollywood concerns the weekly box-office race. It is offered free to the... More

Esprit de corpse

What it’s like to be embedded—on a movie set

By Jay A. Fernandez Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

With an explosion of light, the screaming starts. . . . This place is wrecked—an entire ballroom flopped on its head. In the... More

The red-carpet treatment

Set the Wayback Machine to April 9, 1984. The stars are filing into the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles for the 56th Academy Awards . . .

By Cyndi Stivers Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

In 1984, gaining access to the Oscars was pretty easy. Calling from Vanity Fair, where new immigrant Tina Brown had... More

Taking the seen-it route

Why toil as an entry-level slave when you can watch a lot of TV, write it up, build a following—and perhaps even get paid?

By Sara Morrison Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Since I could talk, I have talked back to the television. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was great—I loved that segment... More

Avoiding pilot error

By tracking its users’ intent to watch fall shows, TVGuide.com handicaps the new TV season

By Cyndi Stivers Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Television viewers are all over the place these days, tuning in via computers, tablets, and phones, at odd times, and... More

Lost and found

In 1967, an ambitious young reporter broke a promise to a troubled source and inadvertently made her famous. Forty-three years later, he set out to find her and apologize.

By Bruce Porter Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

On October 27, 1967, senior editors gathered for the Thursday story conference to see how things were shaping up... More

Going to great lengths

After two years as the hot new thing, the e-singles market is getting serious—and crowded

By Michael Meyer Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

From the beginning, The Atavist was a small startup with a lot of big playmates. A pioneer in the... More

The fame game

Just in time for Hollywood awards season, CJR shines a Klieg light on entertainment journalism—a sometimes deprecated but highly influential corner of the craft.

By The Editors Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

In the past half century, as the big movie studios ceded control of the media narrative, celebrities have loomed... More

Departments

A picture is worth a thousand meanings

By The Editors Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

In October, Columbia J-School joined with BagNewsNotes, an almost decade-old site devoted to analyzing media images, for a discussion... More

Behind the news

Give me a visual

By Jessica Weisberg Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Serious graphic novels, like Maus or Persepolis, have proven that comics aren’t always funny. But what about graphic journalism?... More

Title Search

Python developer

By Jay Woodruff Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Alexandre Conrad is a Python developer for SurveyMonkey. Jay Woodruff interviewed him in September. Have you ever been slapped in... More

A matter of time

Pretty in Finke

By The Editors Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

In October, auto-racing and truck-leasing scion Jay Penske announced that he’d bought Variety, the storied Hollywood trade publication founded in... More

Women’s work

By Sara Morrison Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

When The New York Times made Buffalo News editor Margaret Sullivan its new public editor in September, there seemed... More

Hard truths

What is the future of political factchecking?

By The Editors Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

As the presidential campaign wound down, it became clear that the media’s factchecking effort, which played a more prominent... More

Talk to the hand

A long-running journalism inside joke gets new (after?)life

By Sara Morrison Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Eight years ago, the Chicago Tribune put the halogen searchlight of public attention on an age-old international media conspiracy—an... More

Language Corner

There, there

By Merrill Perlman Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

There are many ways to start articles and sentences. There is often a way to avoid beginning with the phrases... More

Gifted

‘Tis the season

By The Editors Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

If you love a journalist, you know how hard it is to find the perfect gift—they’re so neurotic! So... More

Open Bar

The Anchor Bar

By Tanveer Ali Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

The Anchor Bar 450 West Fort Street, Detroit, MI Year opened 1959. It’s been in its current location since 1993,... More

Death becomes … who?

What the NY Times obits say about America

By Stephen G. Bloom Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

The New York Times is, more than any other single publication, the nation’s arbiter of erudition, prosperity, and success.... More

Letters to the editor

Readers respond to our September/October issue

By The Editors Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Fleurs du mal Very compelling argument and well-stated, Clay Shirky (“Failing Geometry” CJR, September/October). Traditional media’s “original sin” (re: the... More

Hard Numbers

Election edition

By Hazel Sheffield Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

54 Percent of Americans who knew that General Motors’ decision to close its plant in Janesville, WI, happened before Barack... More

Headlines that editors probably wish they could take back

By The Editors Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

- Daily Variety, 9/14/12 - Ventura County (CA) Star, 8/23/12 - Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/29/12 More

DIY celebrity profile

Fill in the blanks

By The Editors Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

“It is half-past 10 on another soullessly sun-kissed Los Angeles morning. And (promising young star) is late. I’ve been sitting... More

Ideas & Reviews

Human capital

In O Albany!, William Kennedy pays homage to the hard-to-love city that is his novels’ greatest hero

By Stefan Beck Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

On January 16, 1928, William Joseph Kennedy suffered a misfortune of birth only slightly preferable to bastardy. Having drawn... More

Flag on the play

Why a great sportswriter blew the story of a lifetime; the undoing of Joe Paterno

By Tim Marchman Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

For those who care about sports and sports writing, the recent publication of Joe Posnanski’s book on the late Penn... More

Brief Encounters

Short reviews of Out of the News, The Way the World Works: Essays, and The Stammering Century

By James Boylan Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Out of the News: Former Journalists Discuss a Profession in Crisis | By Celia Viggo Wexler | McFarland & Company... More

The future’s so bright …

How to save the world while paying people with beer and hugs

By Justin Peters Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

In early 2012, a musician named Amanda Palmer took to Kickstarter to ask her fans for $100,000. Palmer, a... More

Color blind

When white men and three networks ruled the media, coverage of race was … better? Damn you, Internet!

By Amanda Hess Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Last summer, Gawker asked veteran news anchor Dan Rather to review Aaron Sorkin’s new television series The Newsroom. It... More

Innovator’s lament

Shouldn’t trailblazers be allowed to establish new standards of success?

By Michael Schudson and Katherine Fink Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

Some months ago, on the Poynter Institute’s website, PolitiFact’s Bill Adair urged: “[L]et’s blow up the news story.” Journalism must... More

‘How to Get On With Your Life’

Kate White talks life after Cosmo

By Cyndi Stivers Nov 1, 2012 at 12:00 AM

It takes guts to quit a job running the world’s best-selling women’s magazine. But Kate White has long embodied... More

Most Popular
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Twitter

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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