Michael Kinsley is confident that journalism will survive the great newspaper shakeout: If General Motors goes under, there will still be cars. And if the New York Times disappears, there will still be news. Sure, but who’s going to cover it?
It’s bad enough when print magazines fail to use links when they migrate stories online. But it’s inexusable for online magazines. In this case, I’m referring specifically to Yale’s Environment 360. While reading Keith Schneider’s piece on Australia’s growing concerns about climate change, I found it so annoying that I couldn’t click to obvious avenues…Continue Reading…
In case you spent all of March in a monastery, Jay Rosen, one of the leading journalism innovators of the day, recaps the newspaper industry’s quickening death spasms. Or, to put it another way, he has sifted through the latest obits and analytical dissections from people who are trying to explain how we got here,…Continue Reading…
Jeff Jarvis is arguably the most influential media blogger. I’ve been reading BuzzMachine habitually for years because Jarvis is in the vanguard of a revolution–one that will ultimately reinvent journalism for the digital age. His blog is a must-read for many in the industry. But like some of his critics, I blanch at his all…Continue Reading…
Uh oh, looks like Joe Romm has coughed up another media hairball. This time, it’s the New Yorker that has gone off message in Rommian land. So let’s say there are legitimate points of contention with this editorial by David Owen. All you Rommians surely must see how the “indispensable” one completely undermines himself when…Continue Reading…
I’ve been chewing over this column by Nicholas Kristof since yesterday. Of course, he’s not the first to observe the central paradox of our revolutionary new medium: it gives us infinitely more and varied perspectives, yet it also abets increasingly polarized debate. Kristof, in ruing the latter, gets the big picture right. But in making…Continue Reading…
Which crisis is more urgent: the collapsing world economy, the accelerating buildup of greenhouse gases, the growing instability of Pakistan’s governing coalition, the 29,000 children under five years old that die everyday from causes related to poverty, or the the tottering newspaper industry? Really depends where you sit, doesn’t it?
These guys are are also really pissed off at journalists. After I read their rant I thought of that scene in Ghost, where the creepy dead guy on the New York City subway starts yelling at Patrick Swayze, “Get off my train!!”
Over 20 years ago, Raymond Bonner was my man in Latin America. His dispatches were essential reading. Today, I hang on Jeffrey Gettleman’s every word filed from Africa. For those new to him, Jack Shafer’s recent profile in Slate is an excellent introduction. What’s so special about Gettleman is that he’s a great newspaper reporter…Continue Reading…
In 1995, William Cronon published an earthshaking essay titled “The Trouble with Wilderness.” In a nutshell, Cronon argues that wilderness is wholly a human creation, not an exemplar of primordial nature. Cronon knew his claim would be received as “heretical” to many environmentalists, since the idea of wilderness has for decades been a fundamental tenet–indeed,…Continue Reading…