Tea’d Off
Andrew Breitbart's May 2010 defense of the Tea Party in an exclusive interview with the HPR.
On the Newsstand:Journalism
Lying with Statistics
The headline at RealClearPolitics: “65% of doctors think new law will worsen care.” The headline at CNBC: “Survey: U.S. doctors fear healthcare reform.” The headline at the Wall Street Journal: “Survey of U.S. physicians finds pessimism on future of health care.” The reality: This poll was conducted through a “fax-response methodology,” which means it didn’t survey a random sample of ... Read More
Thin Skin at Reason Magazine
Christopher Beam has a long feature in New York magazine on “The Trouble with Liberty,” that is, with libertarianism. I liked the piece, but then, I guess I’m disposed to like such pieces. Radley Balko, a senior editor at the libertarian Reason magazine, is not. He’s upset that Beam wasn’t fair and balanced. Balko says Beam could have “provided sound ... Read More
This is Not Journalism: Politico Edition, Starring Jonathan Allen
Jonathan Allen has a long piece on Politico that is one long excoriation of immature liberals who won’t grow up and let the Obama-orchestrated tax deal go through. This piece represents everything that is wrong with Politico: It is filled with simple-minded analysis of the personalities and psychologies of politicians, based on nothing but the self-serving quotes of other politicians ... Read More
In Defense of the Crimson’s Article on HRC Elections
I’m not exactly known for my warm feelings towards the Harvard Crimson, but I’ll defend their decision to run an article about the allegations that are swirling around the recent Harvard Republican Club elections. (Brief summary: One of the candidates for president of that club withdrew after he was accused by another candidate of forging an email to several club ... Read More
Poll at Your Peril
This column first appeared in the Harvard Independent. In the weeks before Election Day, we were besieged by polling data, breathlessly conveyed as breaking news by unimaginative journalists. This might seem rather benign, a mild diversion for political obsessives. But I’m not sure polls are quite so innocent. We either need to train a more critical eye on opinion polls ... Read More
Thank You John Mayer
For what is probably my second favorite takedown of The Huffington Post, after last year’s TNR cover story by Isaac Chotiner. (The Atlantic’s Ray Gustini calls Mayer’s tirade “less than cogent,” but surely his facility with extended metaphor makes up for that.) But now let me say a word in HuffPo’s defense. Unlike Mayer, I believe that a “stripper with reading glasses” is ... Read More
Taking Stock of the Spill
Apparently, Obama’s BP Oil Spill performance has been a total disaster. Just check the news. He’s weak, aloof, unemotive, Maureen Down explains. “Mr. President, take command,” David Gergen urges on CNN. James Carville exhorts: “This president needs to tell BP, “I’m your daddy.” And Peggy Noonan, writes, simply, for WSJ: “I don’t see how you politically survive this.” Count me among ... Read More
“Public Employees who Make a Lot of Money” Journalism
I’m sure this genre has been around as long as some public employees have made large salaries, but I’ve noticed a couple of recent such articles which I’d like to discuss. One is a Politico article about Capitol Police officers who make up to $175,000, with forty-four of them earning more than the average House chief of staff. Another is ... Read More
The Dangers of Direct Democracy
In Federalist No. 63, James Madison wrote that the defining principle of American democracy, as compared to Athenian democracy, “lies in the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity.” But since Madison wrote those words, several direct-democratic institutions have been introduced into American politics. California became the first state to adopt a ballot-initiative process in 1911, enabling citizens ... Read More
Print is Dead. Right?
For the first time in a long time, there’s serious newspaper competition in New York—actually, newspaper competition anywhere would be newsworthy… But, New York is the big leagues. NYT vs. WSJ, fight! David Carr says: The fight bears watching for a few reasons. This is New York, a crucible of city journalism, a place that has seen newspaper wars for almost ... Read More
The challenges of anonymity in public, political discourse
Obama and Democrats in Congress had a new proposal last week: require groups making public statement to show their face with their messages, reported the New York Times. For a country plagued with people using the veil of anonymity to mask unnecessary baseness, this can only be a positive change and a hopeful sign of a push for changes in ... Read More
Paper and Ink (Online)
As the business manager of a print publication, I can’t help but jump into a discussion about the issues raised in Jeffrey Kalmus’s article in the most recent issue of the HPR about the decision by the New York Times to charge for online content. Two experiences last week stirred my thinking about the economics of print journalism. The first ... Read More
“Africa: Why Do We Care?”
I would like to think that the Committee on African Studies’ decision to hold a panel event entitled “Africa in the Media” together with the Department of African and African American Studies just two weeks after I finished writing an article about the same subject (you can read it here) is more than mere coincidence. Of course I’m biased, but ... Read More
