The Magazine
January/February 2011
Articles
Feature
One Man’s Rwanda
Philip Gourevitch softens some hard truths
By Tristan McConnell Feb 1, 2011 at 06:00 AM
There had been ethnic massacres in Rwanda before, but nothing on the scale of the genocide that began in... More
Feature
Welcome to Tribune Company
Key advice for the next chief executive
By Charles M. Madigan Jan 11, 2011 at 09:30 AM
Dear Sir or Madam: Your most important responsibility before you settle in as CEO is to make certain everyone knows... More
Feature
Live From Chicago, It’s the Tribune Company!
Putting its talent on stage to reconnect with a local audience
By Tim Townsend Jan 8, 2011 at 06:59 PM
On a sunny afternoon in October, Tom Skilling, the popular meteorologist on Tribune Company’s WGN-TV, was in a stairwell of... More
Reports
Spain’s Not-So-Free Press
Long-promised freedom-of-information legislation stalls
By Richard Schweid Jan 8, 2011 at 06:55 PM
Ask Spaniards if they have a free press and most will answer yes. After all, since Francisco Franco died in... More
Reports
New Media Tips from Jacob Riis
A nineteenth-century journalist for a twenty-first-century world
By Paul Niwa Jan 8, 2011 at 06:53 PM
In 1878, Jacob Riis, a police reporter for the New York Tribune, stepped out of his office and into the... More
Reports
The Pornography Trap
How not to write about rape
By Jina Moore Jan 8, 2011 at 06:50 PM
In the Spring of 2009, a reporter for the Associated Press published a news feature about rape in the Democratic... More
Cover Story
Crossfire in Kandahar
Afghanistan’s new journalists navigate an ambiguous war
By Vanessa M. Gezari Jan 6, 2011 at 08:00 AM
One hot night in September, less than a week after Afghanistan’s parliamentary election, soldiers from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force... More
Departments
Editorial
Beyond the Facts
A partisan era requires a vigorous press
By The Editors Jan 18, 2011 at 10:00 AM
The voters have seated a new House of Representatives with an agenda dramatically at odds with that of the president,... More
Darts and Laurels
Darts and Laurels
Laurels to a Texas Monthly reporter and an intrepid attorney who worked to free an innocent man
By Lauren Kirchner Jan 13, 2011 at 10:00 AM
When Anthony Graves was arrested for capital murder, he thought it was a practical joke. A surveillance camera in the... More
Language Corner
Whoa, Nelly!
On “reigning in” misspellings and misusage
By Merrill Perlman Jan 8, 2011 at 07:16 PM
"New Auditor Will Take Reigns in 2011" was the headline. Another article about money said that the "government refuses to... More
Currents
Hard Numbers
Some stats and figures on the news industry
By The Editors Jan 8, 2011 at 06:44 PM
100 journalists and analysts to be hired by Bloomberg Government, a D.C.-based subscription service launching in early 2011 $2,495 gets... More
Currents
Blog to Print
A Los Angeles blog launches a weekly print tabloid
By Nate Berg Jan 8, 2011 at 06:42 PM
Everything seems to be dead nowadays, depending on whom you ask. Print is dead. Blogging is dead. The Web is... More
Currents
Long-Form Saviors
New technology to encourage the reading of long articles, online and off
By Janet Paskin Jan 8, 2011 at 06:40 PM
Reading long articles online invites a thicket of distraction—ads, teasers for slideshows, videos, links hawking penny stocks and personal injury... More
Currents
Border Tales
A Q & A with Alfredo Corchado, Mexico correspondent, about reporting on drug cartels
By Lauren Kirchner Jan 8, 2011 at 06:38 PM
As drug cartel and gang violence escalates, Mexico is becoming one of the most dangerous places in the world to... More
Editorial
Editor’s Note
Some announcements about CJR as we begin our fiftieth year
By Mike Hoyt Jan 8, 2011 at 06:34 PM
This month we begin our fiftieth year. The Columbia Journalism Review made its first appearance back in the fall of... More
Letters to the Editor
Notes From Our Online Readers
Readers weigh in with comments on CJR articles on Fox News, MSNBC, and CBS
By The Editors Jan 8, 2011 at 06:29 PM
In our November/December editorial, we offered some ideas on how to rebuild the democratic conversation to coax readers out of... More
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
Readers respond to last month’s cover story, “A Media Policy for the Digital Age,” and features on In Demand and photo slideshows
By The Editors Jan 8, 2011 at 06:26 PM
‘A National Information Utility’ Re: “A Media Policy for the Digital Age” by Steve Coll (CJR, November/December). Driving around Middle... More
Opening Shot
Opening Shot
Notes on 2010, the year of WikiLeaks
By The Editors Jan 8, 2011 at 06:22 PM
It began in April with the release of a video showing Apache helicopter pilots killing civilians, including two Reuters employees,... More
Ideas & Reviews
The Research Report
Any Questions?
Sociolinguists study the changes in presidential press conferences over five decades
By Michael Schudson and Julia Sonnevend Jan 27, 2011 at 10:15 AM
Sociolinguists are sociologists who study how people talk to one another. They are typically interested in naturally occurring speech, but... More
Review
Bad Medicine
Seth Mnookin’s new book asks, are vaccine fears endangering our health?
By Harriet A. Washington Jan 25, 2011 at 10:30 AM
The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear | By Seth Mnookin | Simon & Schuster |... More
Second Read
Her Great Depression
Re-reading Betty MacDonald’s Anybody Can Do Anything, on the Northwest’s bust years
By Claire Dederer Jan 20, 2011 at 10:00 AM
From the time I was nine or ten, I carried a spiral-bound Mead notebook with me at all times. I... More
The Lower Case
Solar system plagued again by thieves
Headlines that editors probably wish they could take back
By The Editors Jan 8, 2011 at 07:14 PM
Terrorist Is Returned To Prison In Gun Case -The New York Times 10/29/10 Ex-Trader Gets 3 Years In France -The... More
Review
Anger Management
A review of Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right by Dominic Sandbrook
By Sasha Abramsky Jan 8, 2011 at 07:11 PM
Mad as Hell: The Crisis of the 1970s and the Rise of the Populist Right | By Dominic Sandbrook |... More
Review
Brief Encounters
Short reviews of books on Garry Wills and the decline of The New York Times
By James Boylan Jan 8, 2011 at 07:08 PM
Outside Looking In: Adventures of an Observer | By Garry Wills | Viking | 195 pages, $25.95 This is a... More
Review
Golden Years?
Susan Jacoby takes on the old-age deniers in Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age
By Chris Lehmann Jan 8, 2011 at 07:05 PM
Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age | By Susan Jacoby | Pantheon Books |... More
New survey reveals everything you think about freelancing is true - Data from Project Word quantifies challenges of freelance investigative reporting
Why one editor won’t run any more op-eds by the Heritage Foundation’s top economist - A reply to Paul Krugman on state taxes and job growth made some incorrect claims
Why we ‘stave off’ colds - It all started with wine
The New Republic, then and now - Tallying the staff turnover at the overhauled magazine
Why serious journalism can coexist with audience-pleasing content - Legacy media organizations should experiment with digital platforms while continuing to publish hard news
Email blasts from CJR writers and editors
The rise of feelings journalism (TNR)
“Bloom engaged in an increasingly popular style of writing, which I’ve discussed on my blog before, which I call “feelings journalism.” It involves a writer making an argument based on what they imagine someone else is thinking, what they feel may be another person’s feelings. The realm of fact, of reporting, has been left behind.”
Things a war correspondent should never say (WSJ)
“The correspondent retelling war stories surely knows that fellow correspondents had faced the same dangers or worse”
The joyful, bloody media circus of bringing down Brian Williams (Bloomberg)
“In the media, we eat our own for sport”
On WaPo trying to interview a cow (National Journal)
“‘I wasn’t milked on the White House lawn by a strange man,’ The Washington Post—the venerable institution that would later come to break the Watergate scandal and win 48 Pulitzers—quoted her, a farm animal, as saying”
Greg Marx discusses democracy and news with Tom Rosenstiel of the American Press Institute
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
ACEsTooHigh.com – Reporting on the science, education, and policy surrounding childhood trauma
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
