Journalism

Tony Kornheiser vs. Jacksonville

Tony Kornheiser wrote a column in the Washington Post ripping Jacksonville as a Hooters-loving, foul-smelling, remote city of doublewides that only got the Super Bowl because Tuscaloosa was booked: Jacksonville is where Pat Boone was born (sometime around the Martin Van Buren presidency), and where the Southern hair band .38 Special got together. Somehow it doesn't sound like hip-hop. It's more like I-Hop. As a seven-year resident, I'm more offended by Kornheiser's laziness than anything he ... (read more)

2005/01/28

The Lord Works in Mysterious Weblogs

Two years ago, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Ron Martz was embedded as a journalist in Iraq when two soldiers travelling with him were shot. He wrote a first-person column that thanks God for providing him with human shields: I prefer to believe it was the hand of God that put them there, one behind me, one to my left. They were there to protect me. ... Had they not been there, I most likely would not be now typing this. Less than 30 minutes after the two soldiers joined me, both were ... (read more)

2005/01/27

A sneer from political reporter David Halbfinger about Bob Somerby, the publisher of the media criticism site Daily Howler: I've never followed this blog, and am pretty sure I don't know anyone who does. You gotta love a New York Times reporter who concludes that if he doesn't know something, no one else does either. ... (read more)

2005/01/22

With all the accusations of bias and sloppy war reporting, the New York Times doesn't get enough credit for being the weirdest newspaper in America. Reviewer Ned Martel on the PBS cooking show Everyday Food: [Co-host Allie Lewis] demonstrates a forced beginner's pluck, and she reveals a brittleness when she's trying to be soft. When musing over her al dente sautéed snap peas and radishes, she takes a moment to mock her mom's lifelong preference for canned vegetables: "In fact, my mother would ... (read more)

2005/01/18

Blogger Payments No Kos for Alarm

A Wall Street Journal story and the invisible backhand of the blogosphere are attempting to make the publishers of Daily Kos and MyDD the liberal versions of Armstrong "No Bribe Left Behind" Williams: Howard Dean's presidential campaign hired two Internet political "bloggers" as consultants so that they would say positive things about the former governor's campaign in their online journals, according to a former high-profile Dean aide. There's no comparison between these situations. Jerome ... (read more)

2005/01/14

Remove the Blog from Thine Eye

In a letter to the media news site Romenesko, Rob Walsh pops the hype balloon of weblogs, describing them as "nothing more than the Web's version of talk radio." If weblogs are talk radio, as Walsh derides, they are talk radio in which every caller has his own show. The global reach and lack of barriers set them apart. Unlike every other mass medium, the Web doesn't let giant corporations hog the mike. A former CBS gift shop employee who never went to college has a bigger online audience than ... (read more)

2005/01/11

Departing Anchorman is Rather Odd

When Dan Rather leaves CBS Evening News in March, America will lose our best chance to see an anchorman completely blow his top on live television, Howard Beale style. During the Jennings-Brokaw-Rather era of network news, there has never been question who the weirdest anchor was. Wikipedia runs down a few rather odd moments, from the disturbing "what's the frequency, Kenneth?" mugging to his telling people "Courage" at the end of broadcasts for one week in September 1986, at which point he ... (read more)

2004/12/15

David Brock, founder of the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America, has written a letter urging Creators Syndicate to dump Samuel Francis, the columnist who condemned interracial relationships as abnormal and immoral: We strongly condemn the clear bigotry in this column and assume that newspaper editors across the country feel the same way, as a search of newspapers available on Nexis revealed that none have chosen to run the column. Regardless, Creators' willingness to distribute ... (read more)

2004/12/07

Are You Ready for Some Race Mixing?

Samuel Francis, a newspaper columnist distributed by Creators Syndicate, believes the Terrell Owens/Nicolette Sheridan skit on Monday Night Football was an insidious effort to promote interracial sex: If only morals and taste had been the targets, the producers could easily have found white actresses who are less obviously Nordic than the golden-locked Sheridan, but Nordic is what the ad's producers no doubt wanted. For that matter, if you only wanted to take a swipe at morals and taste, you ... (read more)

2004/12/04

CNN Report: We Suck

A front-page story on CNN.Com today derides cable news networks for dumping serious news coverage in favor of talk and fluff, reserving special criticism for CNN: The notion that people can work late, skip the broadcast evening news and catch up later on cable isn't necessarily true. Try to find a serious newscast on these networks in prime time, at least before Aaron Brown on CNN at 10 p.m. Eastern time, and you'll be out of luck. Even CNN Headline News -- a dependable network that rotates ... (read more)

2004/11/30

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