Apr
Why was the Gosnell story ignored when feminists wrote about it years ago?
Journalist Rebecca Traister pointed out via Twitter that the Dr. Gosnell case, which only recently caught the mainstream media’s attention, was covered by feminist writers back in January 2011. Michelle Goldberg wrote about it for The Daily Beast and Katha Pollitt covered Gosnell’s crimes for The Nation. It’s interesting to consider why pro-lifers succeeded in highlighting a story that feminists addressed long ago. As Traister asked, “Why did this story not register AT ALL when feminist journalists were telling it, but provokes anguish when antiabortion forces blow it up?” Good question.
Apr
Mar
Mar
Jan
Sweet Jesus! I suspect this lifestyle would be a hideous idea for most journalists…though it would be interesting to see what George Will’s column would look like under such conditions.
(via juliasegal)
Jan
After years in the stead of three different companies — Time, The Atlantic, and The Daily Beast — Andrew Sullivan is taking his landmark blog independent.
And so, as we contemplated the end of our contract with the Beast at the end of 2012, we faced a decision. As usual, we sought your input and the blogosphere’s - hence the not-terribly subtle thread that explored whether online readers will ever pay for content, and how. The answer is: no one really knows. But as we debated and discussed that unknowable future, we felt more and more that getting readers to pay a small amount for content was the only truly solid future for online journalism. And since the Dish has, from its beginnings, attempted to pioneer exactly such a solid future for web journalism, we also felt we almost had a duty to try and see if we could help break some new ground.
The only completely clear and transparent way to do this, we concluded, was to become totally independent of other media entities and rely entirely on you for our salaries, health insurance, and legal, technological and accounting expenses.
Sullivan and his staff are striking it out on their own. “And so last week, the three of us signed an agreement setting up an independent company called Dish Publishing LLC, and agreed to strike out on our own with no safety net below us but you.” Boom.
I will gladly pay the proposed (and quite reasonable) annual price for access to Sullivan’s rogue blog. This is a bold move by a talented man and it deserves success.
Nov
Saw the great Glenn Greenwald tonight at a panel discussion about journalism and documentaries. Also on the panel was Jeremy Scahill, who debuted a brief but exceptional clip from a documentary he’s working on about U.S. drone strikes.
Oct
Oct
“Whether you read it online or hold the physical object in your hands, this issue of Newsweek is best viewed as an archaeological artifact that is certain to embarrass us in the eyes of future generations. Its existence surely says more about our time than the editors at the magazine meant to say—for the cover alone reveals the abasement and desperation of our journalism, the intellectual bankruptcy and resultant tenacity of faith-based religion, and our ubiquitous confusion about the nature of scientific authority. The article is the modern equivalent of a 14th-century woodcut depicting the work of alchemists, inquisitors, Crusaders, and fortune-tellers. I hope our descendants understand that at least some of us were blushing.”
Oct
The reality is that, as desperately as they try, virtually no journalists are driven by…objectivity. They are, instead, awash in countless highly ideological assumptions that are anything but objective.
These assumptions are almost always unacknowledged as such and are usually unexamined, which means that often the journalists themselves are not even consciously aware that they have embraced them. But embraced them they have, with unquestioning vigor, and this renders their worldview every bit as subjective and ideological as the opinionists and partisans they scorn.
At best, “objectivity” in this world of journalists usually means nothing more than: the absence of obvious and intended favoritism toward either of the two major political parties. As long as a journalist treats Democrats and Republicans more or less equally, they will be hailed - and will hail themselves - as “objective journalists”.
But that is a conception of objectivity so shallow as to be virtually meaningless, in large part because the two parties so often share highly questionable assumptions and orthodoxies on the most critical issues. One can adhere to steadfast neutrality in the endless bickering between Democrats and Republicans while still having hard-core ideology shape one’s journalism.
Aug
Better get on this, Morley Safer
Aug
Fareed Zakaria Faces Accusations Of Lifting From New Yorker
Uh oh.
Update: Zakaria’s apology: “Media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my Time column this week bear close similarities to paragraphs in Jill Lepore’s essay in the April 22nd issue of The New Yorker. They are right. I made a terrible mistake. It is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. I apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at Time, and to my readers.”
Update 2: Zakaria has been suspended by Time magazine for a month.
