Journalists & Journalism

2009

• Doctorow's Newspaper

  The Editors

  Why do we need newspapers? They help make humans of us.

• Sarah, Smile

  Eric Alterman : Conservatives & The American Right

  The next generation of right-wing journalists are largely apparatchiks.

• Where Have You Gone, William Safire?

  Eric Alterman : Media Analysis

  Newsrooms' fears of misunderstanding the right leads to outsized coverage and attention.

• The Student Sex Column Movement

  Alex DiBranco : Youth, Education, & Children

  The explosion of student sex columns, as captivating as they are controversial, represents a campus movement possessed of the same subversive potential that fueled 1960s student activism.

• How to Save the News

  William F. Baker

  The case for public funding of journalism and news outlets.

• Harvard, Heal Thyself (Why Journalism Matters)

  Eric Alterman : Higher Education

  A monthlong investigation finds plenty of fire to go with the smoke surrounding the university's incredibly vague conflict-of-interest policies.

• Novak Without Tears

  Eric Alterman : Conservatives & The American Right

  It's time to do Robert Novak the honor of taking his life's work seriously.

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  The Complicated Legacy of Robert Novak

  John Nichols

  He could be infuriating, crude and wrong. But the late journalist could also leap across ideological, partisan and personal boundaries.

• Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi

  VideoNation : Film

  Nation contributor Christian Parenti describes the relationship between a fixer and a Western reporter in a haunting documentary about the kidnapping of his fixer in Afghanistan.

• Statement on Missing US Hikers

  Shon Meckfessel : Middle East

  Three Americans, including Shane Bauer, a contributor to The Nation, went missing while on a hiking trip in Iraqi Kurdistan and are presumed to be detained by Iranian authorities. A fourth member of their party provides insight into their trip here.

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  Unpopular Science

  Chris Mooney & Sheril Kirshenbaum : Health, Science & Environment

  Intelligent science reporting has been gutted--just when we need it most.

• The Story of a Fixer

  The Editors : Film

  A haunting documentary shines a light on the foreign "fixers" who work behind the scenes with reporters to determine how the story of war gets told.

• The Most Important Financial Journalist of Her Generation

  Dean Starkman : U.S. Economy

  Long before most in the business press rose to the challenge, Gretchen Morgenson was reporting that the financial sector had gone rogue.

• The Smearing of I.F. Stone, Continued

  Eric Alterman : Cold War

  As alleged spy conspiracies go, the case against Izzy is thinner than Paris Hilton.

• All the Letters Fit to Print

  David Margolick : New York Times

  A longstanding rivalry between old friends shows what it takes to get into the New York Times.

• Do 'Better' With Less

  Eric Alterman

  Shortcuts, blindness and downright dishonesty in the rapidly imploding mainstream media.

• The Secret History of Izzy

  D.D. Guttenplan : Cold War

  I.F. Stone was not only a great reporter; he was a radical, an irritant to power.