Tag Archives: journalism

I wish I had written this.

Back in the day a journalist for the Norfolk Pilot newspaper got his copy back from his editor with this note: “Sorry it’s so short but a certain amount of muck, spleen, libel, hogwash, garbage, neologism, prurience, presumption, assumption, half-assumption, … Continue reading

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When in doubt …

… draw a distinction, says Jay Rosen.

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Picturing the news

Peter Maass of The Intercept asks a really good question: “Why have Americans seen relatively little imagery of people suffering from Covid-19? While there is a long-running debate over the influence of disturbing images of death and dying — whether … Continue reading

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Communicators identifying threats

These are the “ideal changes” we should be looking for in American political journalism going forward, according to No Contest favourite Jay Rosen: * Defense of democracy seen as basic to the job * Symmetrical accounts of asymmetrical realities seen … Continue reading

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Journalism needs a better metaphor

NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen writes that “exposure” is a “metaphor that increasingly misleads. I refer to the image of ‘exposure’ as a description of what the press does, should do, or isn’t doing well enough. To expose wrongdoing, incompetence, … Continue reading

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“The Professional Culture of the Press”

NYU Journalism professor and media critic Jay Rosen* writes that “Not in personal but in public life, 2019 has been the most bleak and depressing year I have lived through of my 63. A few tiny green shoots in a … Continue reading

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The Arch Obit

Obituaries must be charming. When a writer conveys the deceased subject’s wicked faults yet still elicits empathy from the reader, the reader has been charmed into a kind of forgiveness for the dead. When the writer seeks to elicit no … Continue reading

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Media theorist Jay Rosen’s forlorn list

A current list of my top problems in pressthink, April 2019. Updated from time to time. Ranked by urgency. 1. Absent some kind of creative intervention, 2020 campaign coverage looks like it will be the same as it ever was. Who’s … Continue reading

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Pretentiousness done right

God bless Janet Malcolm. What books are on your nightstand? I take it you mean the imaginary Doric column that supports a teetering pile of current and old books that the interviewee wants to bring to the reader’s attention. My … Continue reading

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Editors are there for you.

This note appears in Seymour Hersh’s Reporter: A Memoir.  The last seven words are utterly splendid. Here is a congenial interview with Hersh by Christian Lorentzen.

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