May 17, 2008
On Saturday night, George W. Bush enjoyed or endured his final White House Correspondents Association dinner. Craig Ferguson was this year's comic relief. At E&P yesterday we revealed that The New York Times was skipping the event, on principle, having belatedly come to the conclusion that this social mingling of...
Greg Mitchell | Posted April 19, 2008 | Politics
While Beltway pundits and others in the national press have alleged that Barack Obama is clearly and obviously out of touch with most not-so-bitter Pennsylvanians, leading newspapers in the state, who ought to know better, seem to disagree.
In recent days Obama has picked up the endorsements of every major...
Peter Smith | Posted April 19, 2008 | Media
A lot of inside the beltway talking heads and journalists have claimed a special understanding of working class Pennsylvania voters lately.
They say they understand working class Pennsylvanians because they come from Pennsylvania themselves. Or because their fathers belonged to a union. Or worked in a factory. Or drank beer....
Colorado Confidential | Posted April 15, 2008 | Off The Bus
By: Erin Rosa
DENVER-- All this week attorneys here will be conducting trainings to teach prospective demonstrators protesting at the Democratic National Convention how to react to common scenarios involving police.
The effort is being spearheaded by the DNC-People's Law Project and the Oakland-based Midnight Special Law Collective, two groups...
Jay Rosen | Posted April 14, 2008 | Off The Bus
When a story goes from OffTheBus to Meet the Press in two days certain things are lost in the velocity. One of these was OffTheBus itself, the site I started with Arianna Huffington last year. I knew the waves from Mayhill Fowler's story, No Surprise that Hard Pressed...
Greg Mitchell | Posted April 5, 2008 | Politics
It was April 4, 2003, just a few days before the American forces seemed likely to take Baghdad. By then, it was clear the U.S. was headed for a relatively quick victory, but already there were troubling hints that the Iraqis might not be ready to welcome us with hugs...
Michael Shaw | Posted April 3, 2008 | Media
(click for full size)
I'm glad WaPo ran this shot yesterday, for a number of reasons.
On the most basic level, it exposes the trappings of a typical campaign event, in this case, McCain's return to his...
Jay Rosen | Posted April 1, 2008 | Off The Bus
At Attytood, where I check in regularly, Will Bunch had some news for me over the weekend. Liberal bloggers declare war in Philly over media, McCain. He later changed it to, "Liberal bloggers say media-McCain love will be the battleground in the fall." Having just written about that...
Jay Rosen | Posted March 27, 2008 | Off The Bus
First came John McCain's strange assertion that Al Qaeda in Iraq was being trained and supported by the Iranians.
Next he backed off the claim after Joe Lieberman whispered something in his ear. "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not Al Qaeda," he said.
Then on Meet...
Lisa Gans | Posted March 26, 2008 | Politics
Imagine a presidential candidate who believed that God wanted him to run for president because American needed him. Picture a secretive group of Washington insiders who meet quietly to mix religion, class and politics and who believe in an elite group of people divinely ordained to run the country and...
Greg Mitchell | Posted March 22, 2008 | Politics
As the U.S. death toll neared the inevitable 4000 in Iraq, President Bush gave the country another pep talk this week on staying the course, while continuing to argue that history will wash the blood off his hands. Nothing has changed in his claim that when humans, or God, look...
Greg Mitchell | Posted March 21, 2008 | Politics
On his recent trip to Iraq, John McCain acted relentlessly upbeat about the outlook there, even as he mangled basic facts and inspired mockery from some in the media. That made me realize that McCain sounds more like the notorious "Baghdad Bob" every day.
Baghdad Bob, of course, was Saddam...
Jay Rosen | Posted March 17, 2008 | Off The Bus
It is rare that a single article advances American press think. In fact, it is rare for American press think to advance at all, which is one of the reasons our press is so vexed these days. Take this column by Clark Hoyt, the New York Times public editor....
David Simon | Posted March 17, 2008 | Media
Well now, it's been a week since The Wire's final episode and a certain calm has descended, leaving a little less agita and a little more reflection. A moment for one last question:
That wasn't too vicious, was it?
Sure there was a fabulist...
Greg Mitchell | Posted March 8, 2008 | Politics
For almost five years, I have been writing, at Editor & Publisher, about suicides among our troops in Iraq or when they return home. Several chapters on this subject are featured in my new book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President --...
Jay Rosen | Posted March 4, 2008 | Off The Bus
Thursday I posted a little exercise in pattern recognition at the New York Times. Today I am back with the answers I received, plus some commentary on the Washington Post's "women are dumb" article, which fits the pattern in some ways.
Here are three "vetting" stories that went...
Jay Rosen | Posted February 28, 2008 | Off The Bus
Huff Post readers, bloggers, journalists, talk show hosts, onlookers: help me out. Find the pattern:
The New York Times trying to "vet" Obama. (On youthful drug use.)
The New York Times trying to "vet" Hillary Clinton. (On the state of her marriage.)
Sean Carman | Posted February 26, 2008 | Politics
The New York Times has taken some flack for a story documenting that, despite his speeches against corruption in Washington, John McCain has not been careful to separate his relationships with lobbyists from his responsibilities as a senator.
The leading example of McCain blurring the lines involved a...
Jay Rosen | Posted February 25, 2008 | Off The Bus
This weekend Clark Hoyt, public editor of the New York Times, told the Times what Ben Bradlee tells Woodward and Bernstein in one memorable scene from All the President's Men. "You haven't got it," the boss says about a draft of their story. The reporters try to argue back,...
Michael Roston | Posted February 8, 2008 | Politics
Earlier in this new year, Paul Kiel at Muckraker, Talking Points Memo's investigative arm, took note of the fact that he had stopped receiving press releases from the Office of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice. It sounded like retaliation. The new media press pioneers at TPM had done...
On Tuesday night's "Colbert Report," Stephen Colbert had fun with...
From the AP: Democrat John Edwards endorsed former rival Barack Obama on Wednesday, a...
*** UPDATED BELOW *** President Bush has said repeatedly that he would not insert himself into the...
Utterly insane goings-on tonight on...
As the odds get longer and longer, the obvious question is: Why doesn't Hillary Clinton gracefully concede...
It's a pretty well known fact that most women - attractive women -...
Just off the House floor today, the Crypt overheard House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers tell two...
Tonight, Keith Olbermann unleashed what may well have been his...
The AP reports on Obama's swift and forceful response to Bush and McCain's criticism of...
The Democratic Party has finally decided who's going to break it to Hillary that it's time...
Sixteen tips for getting good sleep. There's a lot of advice out there about getting good...
Greg Mitchell | Posted April 26, 2008 | Politics