The Columbia Journalism Review's tagline is "The future of media is here." If it is, then journalism is in worse shape than it appears—and that takes some doing.
In the days following Kirsten Power's "Come to Jesus" column calling out the mainstream media for its failure I pointed out to a shocked Mollie Hemingway of GetReligion.org on Twitter that the Big 3 media criticism sites: Poynter, CJR and Jim Romenesko had all maintained radio silence on the issue. It reinforced the criticism of many on the right that even the self-appointed media watchdogs are too cozy with the journalists they cover.
Today, when the news broke that the Obama Justice Department had named Fox News Channel James Rosen a co-conspirator in a plot to violate the Espionage Act by doing something called reporting, I checked the usual suspects. Romenesko had a brief post with links. Poynter had a more extensive brief with lots of good quotes and links. And CJR responded with absolutely zero commentary on the site. The top three "Must-Reads From Around the Web" are all about the Rosen case, but no original reporting. Or did they?
The article that picture links to is here. It refers to the Benghazi, IRS and Associated Press phone records scandals, but not today's Rosen revelations. I realize one shouldn't impute malice when mere incompetence can explain it, but what the heck is going on at CJR? What are they suggesting?
Does anybody know what's going on around here?
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