The Magazine
September/October 2008
Articles
Essay
Hope I Die . . .
Will the Chicago Reader finally grow up? Should it?
By Edward McClelland Oct 28, 2008 at 09:00 AM
At the turn of the century, John Cusack came home to Chicago to shoot a movie called High Fidelity. In... More
Essay
Parliament’s Peanut Gallery
The wit and wisdom of Britain’s sketch writers
By James Kirchick Oct 14, 2008 at 10:27 AM
Whenever Simon Hoggart writes about Michael Fabricant, he makes note of the honorable gentleman from Lichfield’s hair. “How many My... More
Feature
The Ploughman and the Professor
Consumer reporting in the age of the wise crowd
By Evan Cornog Oct 2, 2008 at 09:00 AM
Journalism is a funny line of work. It wobbles between aspirations to be taken seriously as a “profession,” with all... More
Essay
After the Accident
A reporter’s road back to life and work
By Emily Brady Sep 30, 2008 at 09:00 AM
Five years ago this month, new york city sanitation workers made a gruesome discovery. While emptying garbage cans in the... More
Feature
In the Beginning
From a consumer movement to consumerism
By Trudy Lieberman Sep 25, 2008 at 09:00 AM
Last year, New York’s state legislature, which has historically led the nation in passing pro-consumer credit legislation, approved a pair... More
Essay
The Bigger Tent
Forget Who is a journalist; the important question is, What is journalism?
By Ann Cooper Sep 18, 2008 at 09:00 AM
A PDF download of the complete CJR "The Bigger Tent" story can be purchased from CJR by clicking here: In... More
Essay
Boiler Room
The business press is missing the crooked heart of the credit crisis
By Dean Starkman Sep 16, 2008 at 10:43 AM
“Mr. Howard made it clear to the mortgage broker that he could not read or write, but his loan application... More
Feature
The Lee Abrams Experience
How to hear the man who would transform Tribune
By Robert Love Sep 9, 2008 at 09:00 AM
Abrams Unbound In a modest, cluttered office on the sixth floor of Chicago’s Tribune Tower, the future of American newspapers... More
Essay
Blind Spot
Seeing Iraq through Uncle Sam’s eyes
By Michael Massing Sep 4, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Over the last five years, as I’ve consumed one dispatch after another from journalists embedded with U.S. soldiers in Iraq,... More
Feature
Attitude Adjustment
How the Internet could usher in a new golden age of consumer journalism
By David Cay Johnston Sep 1, 2008 at 11:28 AM
Like the air that sustains life, facts that would help hard-pressed consumers are all around us. Instead of gathering and... More
Departments
Currents
Louts Out
How to police message boards and comments
By Adam Rose Oct 30, 2008 at 09:15 AM
In January, someone who goes by the name “crosswave” logged onto the reader forums at nydailynews.com and posted a comment... More
Currents
Blame It On Aécio
A journalism student’s video documentary took on the issue of governmental press manipulation in Brazil.
By Elizabeth Tuttle Oct 30, 2008 at 09:00 AM
In 1985, press censorship was officially banned in Brazil, following the overthrow of a dictatorship that had for decades crippled... More
Darts and Laurels
Laurel and Mini-Dart to the Baltimore Sun
Send tips and suggestions to dartsandlaurels@cjr.org
By Lawrence Lanahan Oct 7, 2008 at 09:00 AM
Laurel to the Baltimore Sun for spotlighting abuse and street sales of buprenorphine, a widely hailed prescription drug for treating... More
Currents
About Those Anonymice
A research project evaluates how closely NYT reporters adhere to the paper’s anonymous sourcing policy
By Cassandra Lizaire and Alicia Tejada II Sep 18, 2008 at 01:00 PM
Last fall, when Clark Hoyt, the public editor of The New York Times, spoke to Professor Richard Wald's Critical Issues... More
Editorial
What Are Newspapers Selling?
Time to mine the depth and knowledge niche
By The Editors Sep 11, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Hired by Sam Zell to find innovative ways to market Tribune’s newspapers, and for the moment, Abrams is among... More
Ideas & Reviews
The Research Report
Too Good to Be True?
Do local TV news viewers prefer Jim Lehrer to Kent Brockman?
By Michael Schudson & Danielle Haas Oct 23, 2008 at 09:00 AM
Journalists, and for that matter academics, relish a good plot twist. So it’s no surprise that some commentators in the... More
Review
Some Kind of Journalist
Hunter S. Thompson: prolific, Bible-loving, workaholic
By David Gates Oct 16, 2008 at 10:31 AM
Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson by William McKeen W. W. Norton, 448 pages, $27.95 Conversations... More
Review
The Accidental Icon
How Jacob Riis went from the muck to muckraker
By Steve Weinberg Oct 9, 2008 at 09:00 AM
The Other Half: The Life Of Jacob Riis and the World Of Immigrant America By Tom Buk-Swienty Translated from the Danish by... More
Review
What Happens in War
Dexter Filkins’s decade in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq
By Anthony Swofford Sep 23, 2008 at 09:00 AM
Dexter Filkins has been covering the biggest story of the last ten years for the last ten years. A good... 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.
