If any reporter or columnist had thrown softballs like these at President Bush, you'd have the journalistic establishment hyperventilating with outrage: You’re presented as a wealthy woman from San Francisco when you’re really this middle-class kid from Baltimore … How do you get more of who you are across? You get very high marks for […]
At the bottom of a column designed to discourage scrutiny by starting out with the New York Times perfume critic, public editor Byron Calame drops a stunner: Since the job of public editor requires me to probe and question the published work and wisdom of Times journalists, there’s a special responsibility for me to acknowledge […]
James Taranto over at OpinionJournal.com notes an unintentionally revealing story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on two women who are going to spend some not-serious-enough time in prison. "Jennifer Kolar and Lacey Phillabaum seem unlikely criminals," declares an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Well-educated young women passionate about environmental causes, they share a love of the […]
I wrote pretty extensively earlier this month on the proposition that the American media would be better off if we admitted where our political interests lie even while striving to be fair and objective. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's reader advocate (aka ombudsman) David House has weighed in on the subject and I think that despite […]
Scalia says Constitution silent on abortion, race in school Unfortunately, the Associtated Press did not run a word search on the Constitution to verify Scalia's statement. I watched part of the "debate" while flipping back and forth between CSPAN and the Chargers' demolition of the San Francisco 49ers. The video is available on the front […]
The scandal isn't that Duke Lacrosse players raped an "exotic dancer," because the evidence is pretty clear that they didn't. Instead, the scandal is how the media has covered the story -- especially the New York Times, according to New York magazine reporter Kurt Anderson. But real facts are stubborn things. And today, the preponderance […]
There's a couple of media issues that I want to hit on rather quickly. The first is an interview last week between radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt and Eric Black, a reporter for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The entire interview is interesting, but I want to highlight one part of it. HH: Eric Black, last […]
Monday's New York Times editorial page comments on the upcoming Supreme Court term in what can only be described as ominous terms. Most of the editorial is liberal boilerplate, advocating the respect of precedent when the precedent is liberal (partial birth abortion) and encouraging the court to be activist when the result would be supporting […]
It's probably gone under the radar for the past few days because too many people, including yours truly, have long ago come to the conclusion that New York Times public editor Byron Calame is an even more ineffectual advocate than his oft-derided predecessor, Daniel Okrent. So, imagine my surprise when I checked Calame's Web Journal […]
It's just sad. Really. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, usually ignored here, is a sad, sad man. First off, the guy is the toast of the DailyKos set. Which means he's a nut. Second, there's this effort to toot his own horn, via NRO's Media Blog. Tonight, Keith Olbermann tried desperately to convince his viewers that they […]