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Criticizing Israel is not an anti-Semitic act
COMMENTARY | January 05, 2009
Why is finding fault with Israel seemingly off-limits in so much of the mainstream American media?

If murder is metaphor
SHOWCASE
On the one hand, muses Steven A. Smith, this generation’s mentors are leaving before their job is done. On the other hand, as some younger journalists argue, who needs these oldsters anyway?

The world focuses on Gaza
COMMENTARY
The overseas press: The No. 1 international story last week was Israeli bombardment of Gaza. Much of the overseas press is critical of Israel for the aerial barrage, but some put the blame on Hamas.

A home destroyed Dec. 22nd by a coal ash spill at a TVA retention pond in Harriman, Tenn. (AP photo)
Why are Tennessee residents buried in coal ash?
ASK THIS
West Virginia reporter Ken Ward, Jr., an expert on the coal industry, says some good reporting has been done on the Dec. 22 TVA dam break, but a lot more needs to be done—including following the paper trail to find out why the dam broke in the first place.


New state laws benefit veterans
From property taxes to jobs to home buying, veterans get help from various new state laws.
(stateline.org)

The government has its Twitter feeds
The Air Force and other branches of the military are getting into the social networking game, along with other branches of government, reports the Center for Media and Democracy.
(prwatch.org)

Almost 1 in 5 media jobs cut since 2000
U.S. media have cut 196,200 or 18.6% of jobs since 2000, Advertising Age reports. More than half the cuts have been newspaper jobs.
(Advertising Age)

Lobbyist sues NY Times
Vicki L. Iseman filed a $27 million defamation suit, charging the Times erroneously gave the impression that she had had an affair with John McCain. The suit also names as defendants the Times' executive editor, its Washington bureau chief and four reporters.
(Talking Points Memo)

Top ten science breathroughs
Science Magazine issues its list of the top ten breakthroughs of 2008. At the top is converting human skin cells to stem cells.
(Science Magazine)

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From Nieman Reports | Ethical values and quality control in the digital era
SHOWCASE
Bob Steele at Poynter sees a significant erosion of ethical standards. Blogs, Tweets, social networking, citizen-submitted content and multi-media storytelling offer great promise, he writes—but they also carry considerable peril.

From Nieman Reports | Why bother to do what we do? Because it matters.
SHOWCASE
In advance of a new round of expected cuts at the Miami Herald, editor Nancy San Martin deals with the "why bother" questions: Why work long days for jobs that are fading away; why try to hold together a newsroom that may be dying? And citing Herald coverage from Haiti and Cuba, her answer is: "We do it because it matters."

Nieman Reports | How much more can we shrink editorial attention spans?
SHOWCASE
Author Maggie Jackson asks, "Are consumers lazy? Are the media to blame? Or is Google making us stupid?" One way or another, she writes, the current ‘speed-up-the-news’ climate undermines democracy and people’s ability to think.

Nieman Reports | The changing truths of journalism
SHOWCASE
Business Week has 28-staff written blogs, nearly 5,000 videos, and tens of thousands of readers posting comments every month. Welcome to the digital world.

| Cheney says he approved waterboarding. Is that the end of the story?
ASK THIS
The vice president gave the go-ahead for tactics commonly regarded as torture. Was that a war crime or not? William J. Astore provides some background on the issue and urges the press to show that it too can do aggressive interrogations. And do them now, without waiting for a new administration or a new Congress.

| Serious staff cuts come to book publishing, too
COMMENTARY| December 19, 2008
An author and book editor looks at 'Black Wednesday' and the spate of firings in his industry. One publisher went so far as to put a freeze on acquisition of new books. (How's that for reducing the news hole.)


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Watchdog Blog
Bob Giles
 Curator’s Corner: Clear Direction in Tough Economic Times
As the Nieman Foundation’s Advisory Board met in early November on the eve of the convocation celebrating 70 years of Nieman Fellowships, two questions dominated the discussions: • Should the foundation reconsider its mission of midcareer education in response to the dramatic and disruptive technological and economic changes affecting journalism? • How can the foundation give the fellows a [...]

Mary C. Curtis
 It’s just a name
What’s in a name? I know what’s in mine. My grandmother on my mother’s side died when my older sister was an infant. My parents promised that if they had another daughter, they would honor my late grandmother. So that’s how this fifth and final child of Thomas and Evelyn Curtis came to be named Mary [...]

Herb Strentz
 Bye-bye to a Tradition in Des Moines
In its most recent wave of Gannett-mandated cuts, the Des Moines Register ended a century-old tradition — one readers most identified with — and gave walking papers to Brian Duffy, one of the few editorial cartoonists in the paper’s 105 years. For more than 100 years the editorial cartoons of Jay (Ding) Darling, Frank Miller and [...]

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New York Times is selling display ads on Page One
In the face of falling advertising revenues, The Times has started selling display advertising on its front page. Click here to see the first ad (bottom of page), which appeared Jan. 5th. It was bought by CBS.
(The New York Times)

Fewer journalists killed in 2008
Doctors Without Borders reports that fewer journalists were killed this year doing their jobs than in 2007 due to a big fall in the number of deaths in Iraq.
(Reuters)

Will others join NJ in repeal of death penalty?
A year after New Jersey became the first state in a generation to repeal the death penalty, capital punishment opponents in Maryland and New Mexico are pointing to recent political developments in their states as a sign they could be next.
(Stateline.org)

Asking readers for questions
In his New York Times “Dot Earth” column, Andrew C. Revkin asks readers for questions to put to the Obama science team. He starts out with one on dealing with threats to maritime life.
(New York Times)

Newspapers in broad flight from DC
Will anyone be left to cover Congress? The agencies? A New York Times report on the closing or cutting the size of bureaus in the nation's capital.
(New York Times)

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