If I were still writing editorials, I would comment on, and condemn, Russia’s use of its military against Georgia. I would also have something to say about the Bush administration’s huffing and puffing about Russian aggression. The point I would make is that the U.S. set a terrible example for how nations should behave with [...]

Any cop or lawyer can tell you that when two or more people witness the same event they are likely to come away with quite different versions of what they saw. So it is with a pastor’s interviews with the Presidential candidates at Saddleback church Saturday night.. The New York Times’ conservative columnist William Kristol [...]

Here we go again. In a mindless display of he-said, she-said journalism, the Washington Post gave its readers a front-page ad last week for books about Barack Obama, the most prominent being a hatchet job by the notoriously inaccurate “author” who maligned John Kerry in 2004. The New York Times had the day before published [...]

NBC’s David Shuster offered a fine example of exemplary journalism on the night of August 14th, and I think it should be duly noted. Sitting in for Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, Shuster opened the program by relating the news that Hillary Clinton’s primary campaign supporters would have their chance to vote for their candidate [...]

Sometimes our journalism makes it difficult to tell the sharpshooter from the target. That observation came to mind as I looked at how The Des Moines Register covers the Olympic adventures of hometown gymnast Shawn Johnson, the delightful 16-year-old with the refreshing ways and astounding talent. The way we do things in America put Ms. [...]

Could television journalists please banish to the dustbin the mindless words and phrases that are poisoning public discussion of politics? For example, “flip-flop” is used to disparage candidates for having changed their positions on particular issues. But do we really want to elect candidates with fixed ideas who decline to change when the situation and [...]

The saving grace of news coverage and commentary on the Beijing Olympics is the muscular young man on the rings or the graceful young woman on the balance beam or – take your pick of any of the astounding performances of strength, agility or endurance that come tumbling, splashing,  riding or racing your way in [...]

Nearly 35 years ago, the Washington Post front-paged an exposé of systematic and shabby — but then-legal — election-campaign financing by Leon Hess, chief executive officer of Amerada Hess Corp., the East Coast gasoline retailer. Just the other day, his son John, who succeeded him as CEO, loomed large in a new exposé of the [...]