PressEthic

One of the most popular stories in The Boston Globe this week.

"Should" and "must" loving editorialists, Slate's Jack Shafer is onto you.

Maybe in a few years, online media will develop itself into a more self sustainable model, but currently it is too dependent on the very newspaper it is supposedly putting out of business.

New York Times coverage of the New Jersey gubernatorial race focuses on unsubstantiated rumors circulated by unnamed "reporters."

Whatever happened to the Christian ethic of tolerance? I guess not even a doll is safe.

Available at Kmart.

Florida’s Gannett owned newspapers, News Press, Florida Today and the Pensacola News Journal will not be receiving the names of people FEMA gave money to after the 2004 hurricanes. Read the article here.

The papers had sued FEMA for a list of names and addresses of all the people who received government aid because they wanted to “examine alleged inequities and fraud in the distribution of more than $1.5 billion to assist in recovery after the hurricanes.” The papers lost out in federal court on Friday to FEMA who argued, “it needed to protect the privacy of these disaster victims.”

Such a headline should draw some attention, though its accuracy is disputable. While foreign propaganda is slightly easier to prove, internal partisan bias in public broadcasting may just be a matter of opinion.

Is the Broadcasting Board of Governors a well-known public body in the US? If not, why not...

This blog installment is going to toe the line on media criticism, but I feel like I need to get something off my chest that has been weighing me down for quite some time.

Damn you Oprah Winfrey and your book club!

(Insert big sigh here.)

I am what one would call a ‘bookworm.’ I have always loved to read and I do so voraciously. When I found out I had to buy 14 books for my first semester at NYU the pain in my wallet was balanced by the joy in my heart.

I am ill at ease with Oprah’s Book Club. On one hand I think it’s great that she is getting people to read all these fantastic books. What she chooses to endorse is, in my mind, worth while reading. No Harry Potter here.

What do 8 million teenagers, the founder of craigslist and a political theorist have in common ?

Jeff Jacoby continues the debate in this Boston Globe column.

Do we need to change the rules because teenagers are more sophisticated?

Once again, the debate rises: what pictures should be published? Is it more important to inform or protect the public?

When a journalist writes a memoir, is it journalism?