September/October 2009

Articles

By Elinore Longobardi Oct 12, 2009 at 09:50 PM

What is the root cause of the financial crisis? “Lousy loans,” says Elizabeth Warren, the chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight... More

A Luddite’s Virtual Book Tour

Get on Facebook, make a video, e-blast everyone you know

By Judith Matloff Oct 6, 2009 at 09:05 PM

Just before my latest book, Home Girl, came out in June 2008, the Random House promotion team invited me in... More

Great Expectations

An Investigative News Network is born. Now what?

By Charles Lewis Oct 6, 2009 at 09:04 PM

Call it the Pocantico Declaration. Back on July 1, the leaders of twenty muckraking nonprofit news organizations concluded a three-day... More

Take a Stand

How journalism can regain its relevance

By Brent Cunningham Sep 29, 2009 at 08:00 AM

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, as the press faced criticism for failing to use the catastrophe to initiate a... More

The New Energy Beat

It’s global as well as local, environmental as well as financial. Can embattled newsrooms see the big picture?

By Curtis Brainard and Cristine Russell Sep 24, 2009 at 12:00 AM

On a Monday morning in January, less than a week after his inauguration, President Barack Obama signed two memoranda designed... More

Disappearing Iraq

After a period of openness that benefited both the military and the media, the door is closing

By Jane Arraf Sep 15, 2009 at 08:00 AM

Ah, the happy world of Iraq, as seen through U.S. military press releases. Iraq could be exploding—in fact, parts of... More

Too Close for Comfort?

Tom Ricks and the military’s new philosophical embeds

By Tara McKelvey Sep 9, 2009 at 08:00 AM

Thomas E. Ricks has a photograph of a general—Ulysses S. Grant, looking haggard and defeated in Cold Harbor, Virginia—on the... More

Departments

Somalia’s Dark Days

By David Axe Oct 6, 2009 at 08:54 PM

Ahmed Omar Hashi was no stranger to death threats. As a senior producer for Mogadishu’s popular Shabelle Radio, Hashi routinely... More

All Together Now (II)

By Megan McGinley Oct 6, 2009 at 08:46 PM

When the San Diego Union-Tribune went on sale in July 2008, veteran investigative reporter Lorie Hearn worried about the future... More

All Together Now (I)

By Brent Cunningham Oct 6, 2009 at 08:44 PM

Not long ago, Kevin Murphy was simply the president of the Berks County Community Foundation in Reading, Pennsylvania, a city... More

News outlets in Connecticut grapple with a hostage crisis

By Greg Marx Sep 17, 2009 at 09:42 AM

It was the kind of ethical dilemma that classroom case studies are made of, but the potential con- sequences of... More

Truth? Yes, Sir!

Why we need a clearer view of both our wars

By The Editors Sep 9, 2009 at 08:00 AM

General William Tecumseh Sherman, like a number of military leaders through history, despised journalists. Tom Curley, president and CEO of... More

Ideas & Reviews

Opening Minds

Can the media persuade audiences to embrace a fresh outlook?

By Michael Schudson and Julia Sonnevend Oct 6, 2009 at 09:34 PM

Viewers of The Colbert Report do not all see the same show. Liberals see host Stephen Colbert as a liberal... More

First Person Singular

An African master recedes behind his own myth

By Eula Biss Oct 6, 2009 at 09:31 PM

In a letter to Chinua Achebe, John Updike once admired the swift and surprising ruin of the hero at the... More

Raising Keynes

A new book paints the iconic economist as the ultimate realist

By Jeff Madrick Oct 6, 2009 at 09:24 PM

How difficult it is to be right. John Maynard Keynes is “an entertaining economist whose bright but shallow dissertations on... More

Brief Encounters

Short reviews of books on the Irish Revolution and animal rights crusaders

By James Boylan Oct 6, 2009 at 09:19 PM

The News From Ireland: Foreign Correspondents and The Irish Revolution By Maurice Walsh I.B. Tauris 258 pages, £20 At the... More

Rocket Man

An epic tale of men, missiles, and bureaucratic maneuvering

By Ryan Grim Oct 6, 2009 at 08:00 AM

Humanity is now some sixty years into the nuclear age and has, somehow, yet to extinguish itself. How that somehow... More

Of Heroes and Humans

Jim Brosnan wrote about himself, and sports writing evolved

By Michael Shapiro Sep 22, 2009 at 08:00 AM

Red Smith, who wrote as well as anyone about athletes and the games they play, called the sports section the... More

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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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