Media

Just as I was thinking Medicaid as a legitimate topic for media exploration was dead in the water, along comes a good story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that takes a critical look at what's going to be a very big headache for the Affordable Care Act and those supporting its goal of more people under the insurance umbrella. The...

In 18 months spanning 2010 and 2011, Guardian editor in chief Alan Rusbridger decided to conquer Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, a notoriously difficult, 264-measure piece. His original goal was to have the piece performance-ready in a year, but it ended up coinciding with one of the craziest news cycles of his career: Wikileaks and the British media...

In his "Stories I'd like to see" column, journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill spotlights topics that, in his opinion, have received insufficient media attention. This article was originally published on Reuters.com. 1. Ask about the Miley Cyrus sleaze: In the wake of MTV's universally-panned decision to feature 20-year-old Miley Cyrus in a cringe-producing sex pantomime with 36-year-old Robin Thicke during...

CNN's Peter Hamby has written a must-read retrospective on coverage of the 2012 Romney campaign. His report, "Did Twitter Kill the Boys on the Bus? Searching for a better way to cover a campaign", which weighs in at a hefty 95 pages, documents recent changes in the business models and journalistic practices of media outlets and how those have affected...

In the nine months since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the rekindled debate over gun control has remained in the headlines. Congress failed to pass new gun-control legislation, but several states pushed through tighter restrictions, prompting gun manufacturers in some of those states to relocate; seven states made it legal for teachers and administrators to carry firearms...

In the July/August issue of CJR, Francesca Borri wrote a powerful essay about the plight of being a freelancer, and a woman, covering the Syrian civil war for Italian media. The reaction to her piece was impassioned and global. As of August 6, it had drawn 390,000 pageviews, making it the most-viewed piece ever on cjr.org. News outlets in...

Power of the punchline Thanks for your article, Dannagal G. Young ("Lighten up," CJR, July/August). One thing you fail to mention: Satire actually gets political results. Congress passed the 9/11 firefighters/police health bill thanks to the efforts of Daily Show outrage. Over several days, Jon Stewart and staff hammered at the topic, and the legislation soon got passed. I also...

Local Edition San Francisco, CA Year opened 2012 Owners Future Bars, aka Doug Dalton and Brian Sheehy Distinguishing features Located in the basement of the Hearst building, where the San Francisco Examiner was published, it's filled with old typewriters, printing presses, and the front pages of local newspapers from historic events, like the US declaration of war in 1941, the completion of...

An editorial discussed Iran's "determined program to attain nuclear-weapons capacity." Later, it cited pressure on Iran "to halt its aggressive program to attain a nuclear bomb." What Iran is trying to do is "attain" nuclear capacity so it can "obtain" a nuclear bomb. "Attain" and "obtain" both have the sense of "getting" something. But "attain" has embedded in it the...

Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's largest yakuza crime syndicate, has published an official magazine that features satirical haikus and genteel articles about angling. In response, we present highlights from the Corleone family newsletter. » Fine Dining: Clemenza shares his famous spaghetti-sauce recipe. Because you might have to cook for 20 guys some day. » How to house-sit: for when you've gotta go to the...

55 percent of American voters identified Edward Snowden as a "whistleblower" in July 2013 34 percent of American voters identified Snowden as a "traitor" in July 2013 40 days that journalists camped in the Moscow airport while Snowden waited for asylum 33 percent of Hong Kong residents consider Snowden "a hero" 956,107 YouTube views of "citizen journalism" video of arrest...

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Busted! Hair Net Hero is part of a new breed of news game (Center for Investigative Reporting) Looking for a new way to involve readers in your stories? Get them to play games. The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) is launching its first videogame, Hair Net Hero, to teach children how to eat more healthfully at school. Aimed at...

Alexia Tsotsis carries bags inside her bags. The 31-year-old San Francisco co-editor of TechCrunch carries enough stuff with her "in case I'm walking down the street and someone says 'You need to be in New York right now.' I could do that," she says. She could also curl her hair, go for a run, or, yeah, cover any breaking...

In 2008, Gustavo Faleiros, a reporter at the Brazilian news outlet O Echo, sought a way to synthesize the massive amounts of data on the Amazon rainforest in an interactive, visual format. With an area spanning nine countries and 5.5 million square kilometers, the Amazon is the source of some of the most comprehensive data sets in the world....

Breaking News. Those two little words can sound a warning cry when uttered by a news anchor. But has the call to attention grown dull from overuse? In July, WDRB, a news station in Louisville, KY, announced that it was ditching the term except in cases where the news warrents it. (Like, when a story is actually breaking.) In honor...

--Associated Press, 7/23/13 --San Francisco Chronicle, 7/20/13 --Gainesville Sun, 7/3/13 --Minneapolis Star Tribune, 7/22/13

DART to KTVU, the Fox affiliate in Oakland, CA, for its infamous broadcast of bogus, racist names for the pilots involved in July's Asiana Airlines plane crash. According to the station's apology, KTVU made a phone call to the National Transportation Safety Board to confirm names, including "Sum Ting Wong" and "Bang Ding Ow," but somehow never sounded them...

Back in the day, arctic explorers had it easy. In order to dress for expeditions, they simply approached Inuit hunters and ordered the hides of whatever animals could be killed. Frederick Cook, who claimed to be the first white man to reach the North Pole, packed hare stockings, blue-fox coats, bearfur pants, and bird-skin shirts. His rival, Robert Peary, favored...

Culled from CJR’s frequently updated “Must-reads from around the Web,” our staff recommendations for the best pieces of journalism (and other miscellany) on the Internet, here are your can’t-miss must-reads of the past week: Twenty-four-hour party people -- MSNBC tries to figure out what liberals really want The NYPD Division of Un-American Activities -- After 9/11, the NYPD built in...