journalism
Why Did the Government Secretly Obtain Two Months of AP Phone Records?
Cord Jefferson · 05/13/13 05:08PMAre You a Journalist? Ask the Treasury Department and Israel
Tom Scocca · 05/13/13 02:01PMCord Jefferson · 05/10/13 04:04PM
Friedman Smuggles International Worker's Day Message into Column
Max Read · 05/01/13 09:44AMThomas Friedman manages decent structural analysis ("We now live in a 401(k) world—a world of defined contributions, not defined benefits") in his column today, smuggled in alongside Friedmanism ("where everyone needs to pass the bar exam and no one can escape the most e-mailed list"). We salute you, fellow traveler!
Thomson Reuters Just Making Up Reporters Now
Max Rivlin-Nadler · 04/27/13 01:13PMAustralasian Legal Business, a publication owned by Thomson Reuters that covers business news in Asia and the Middle East, has welcomed back Michelle Boatley, one of their ace journalists, to their staff. Boatley, who covered layoffs in Bangkok, mergers in Shanghai, and hiring in Dubai, hasn't written for a few years.
New York Times Uncovers Devastating Fraud in Minority Farmers Program
Cord Jefferson · 04/26/13 02:36PMBBC Uses Unknowing Students as Cover to Gain Access to North Korea
Max Rivlin-Nadler · 04/14/13 12:45PMExxonMobil Restricting Reporters from Entering Site of Arkansas Oil Spill
Max Rivlin-Nadler · 04/06/13 02:00PMFilmmaker Who Immersed Himself in Homeless Life as Part of Journalism Job Application Apparently Froze to Death
Neetzan Zimmerman · 04/05/13 10:35AMA Stupid Death in a Stupid War: Remembering Michael Kelly
Tom Scocca · 04/03/13 04:53PMTen years ago today, somewhere south of Baghdad, the editor and columnist Michael Kelly became the first journalist to die in the invasion of Iraq. His Humvee, reportedly under fire, went off the road and rolled into a canal. And there, inside some two and a half tons of the world's finest military equipment, he drowned.
Why Did the AP Run A Story About All the Gun Deaths on One Day and Not Mention It Was Gun Appreciation Day?
Max Rivlin-Nadler · 03/10/13 12:18PMYesterday, the Associated Press released a story that soberly chronicled some of the deaths caused by gun violence on a single day in America. The single, typical day was January 19th, which as the article states, was the beginning of the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, as well as the weekend of the presidential inauguration. However, more importantly, it was also the inaugural "Gun Appreciation Day" as David Waldman points out. It's hard to believe that it could be a simple coincidence that the AP chose "Gun Appreciation Day" to highlight the deaths caused by that so worthy of appreciation.
Tom Scocca · 03/08/13 01:48PM
Is Your Favorite 'Journalist' on the Malaysian Government's Payroll? Maybe
Cord Jefferson · 03/01/13 05:42PMBuzzFeed's Rosie Gray today drops news that a number of people writing for a whole host of websites across the political spectrum were doing so on behalf of the Malaysian government. And for their work they were paid handsomely. In other words, they were secretly pawning off talking points from the Malaysian government as their own in exchange for money. This is how some journalists get paid now.
National Journal Writer Wants to Know Why the President Doesn't Just Murder John Boehner
Max Read · 03/01/13 05:37PMNational Journal writer Ron Fournier wants President Obama to do something about the government sequestration going into effect today. "I have... faith in him and his off[ice]," he tweets. Fournier's sick of tired Obama excuses like "I'm not a dictator" and "I can't Jedi mind meld" and "I can't send a team of SEALs to murder John Boehner and his wife in their bedroom."
Bradley Manning Tried to Leak to the New York Times and Washington Post Before Turning to Wikileaks
Adrian Chen · 02/28/13 02:00PMWikileaks has become a symbol for the radical, some say dangerous, new future of information distribution. But the story of its biggest leaker appears to have started in a very old-fashioned way. Bradley Manning, the 25-year-old former Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking huge caches of documents to Wikileaks, said in a hearing today that he initially tried to leak to journalists at the New York Times and Washington Post, and only turned to Julian Assange's shop after they didn't take him seriously.
Let's All Speculate On the Identity of the 'Inappropriate' Times Columnist
Mallory Ortberg · 02/24/13 04:10PMMore Newspaper Layoffs Likely to Follow Journal-Register's Sale
Mallory Ortberg · 02/23/13 04:00PMEsquire Editors: If You Complain About Our Botched Bin Laden Shooter Story, You Hate the Troops
Tom Scocca · 02/12/13 02:09PMHaving bungled one of the two central premises of their story about the Navy SEAL who is supposed to have killed Osama bin Laden, the editors of Esquire are now arguing that they were secretly right all along. Yes, Phil Bronstein's piece did say that "the Shooter," as the story calls the SEAL, gets "no health care" after leaving the service, when in fact—as Stars and Stripes pointed out—he is covered by the Department of Veterans Affairs. But according to the editors, that's a distraction from the real point:
Lawrence Wright's Scientology Exposé Comes Out This Week
Mallory Ortberg · 01/13/13 12:25PMNew Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright's long-awaited Scientology book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, will be released this Thursday, and the reviews are already coming in. Based in part on a 2011 profile of director and former Scientologist Paul Haggis, the book focuses primarily on the legacy of L. Ron Hubbard and his successor, David Miscavige. It contains over 200 interviews with both "current and former" Scientologists from all ranks within the organization.