Month: December 2004

We were surprised to open up Monday’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune to see Jon Tevlin’s article on religion in the workplace. Surprised, because it was very similar to a feature story that was on the cover of the New York Times Magazine about a month ago. We’d noticed Russell Shorto’s feature, not only because it was a…

We have very little patience for the ongoing conversation about blogs and whether anybody cares about them or not. Like most things, it makes very little sense to judge a whole medium or phenomenon generically. There are good blogs and there are bad blogs. (Helpful hint: paid professionals are paid professionals for a reason. They…

In yesterday’s Sunday Times, Frank Rich makes a point we were trying to make ourselves a few weeks ago. In the aftermath of the election, USA Today had published a story that suggested Big, Bad, Liberal Media was scratching its collective head, wondering where it had gone so terribly wrong in understanding the country–and more…

Yesterday at Slate, Jack Shafer claimed that “the best place to judge journalists is on the printed page.” That seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to say… if you’re judging them on their journalism. But that was not the point of his article—which purported to follow up on an “anonymous tip” regarding the speaking fees…

We don’t normally pay that much attention to the local daily news. Not in a professional way—it’s too much work for too little reward, and we’re constantly annoyed at how the paper has become more about pictures and graphics than about actual news stories. But certain broad cultural trends had us interested in seeing the…

In our ongoing coverage of Tom Wolfe’s new book, we mentioned yesterday that we enjoyed Jacob Weisberg’s review in last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review. What distinguishes good criticism from great criticism? We’re glad you asked. A couple of things, actually. First, we prefer critics to resist the urge to pronounce a simple verdict.…