A REALLY Great Moment in Journalism, as a Laid-Off Sun-Times Photographer Documents His New Life

As the author of this new blog describes it: Rob Hart was replaced with a reporter with an iPhone, so he is documenting his new life with an iPhone, but with the eye of a photojournalist trained in storytelling. Rob Hart is a Freelance Photojournalist and Adjunct Faculty of Photojournalism at the Medill School of Journalism. He’s [...]

Great Moments in Journalism: How the AP Reported Corpus Christi

From Venezuela, we learn this fascinating tidbit:  The descendants of African slaves donned masks and bright red costumes as they danced through the streets of this small Venezuelan town on Thursday for its annual commemoration of Corpus Cristi. [sic] Young men beat drums and shook maracas as the “devils” paraded through the streets and people [...]

“Reporter” listed as worst job of 2013

From the Wall Street Journal: This year, several professions geared toward serving the financial and health needs of an aging population made the top ten, says Lee, including audiologist, financial planner, and physical therapist. As for the worst job of 2013? Newspaper reporter bumped last year’s loser, lumberjack, for the ignominious distinction. “It’s been low [...]

Gosnell backlash: how a free press becomes less free

If the press isn’t responsible, the government will start trying to tell it what to do.  And you will encounter things like this:  Some 72 members of Congress have signed on to a letter demanding that the mainstream media provide coverage of the murder trial of abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell. Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Steve [...]

Is media bias tainting the Gosnell story?

Veteran journo Paul Moses ponders that question over at Commonweal’s blog:  There is a lively debate over whether major national news organizations have ignored or downplayed the trial of a Philadelphia abortion doctor who is charged with murder in the deaths of seven babies allegedly born alive and one mother…With the sensational charges made by both sides, the intense [...]

Idiotic argument of the week: the real cause of the Gosnell horror was the pro-life movement

While the shocking details of the Kermit Gosnell trial continue to seep out — and the national media averts its gaze — people are asking how it happened in the first place. NARAL has a convenient answer: So why did women go to his clinic? Why not choose a legitimate, reputable provider of abortion care? [...]

The journalist who became an evangelist

I spotted his obit in the New York Times this morning, and wanted to post something.  But now Terry Mattingly has gone a step further, and nicely woven together the threads of this exceptional life. Take it away, Terry: If you wanted to know who John McCandlish Phillips was, as a New York Times journalist, all you [...]

Great moments in journalism: for Easter, the NY Times lays an egg

I was otherwise engaged on Sunday, and didn’t check out the NY Times.  But other sharp-eyed readers caught this doozy:  Elisabetta Povoledo is a Rome-based reporter for the paper’s international edition, but either she or her copy editor made a mortifying mischaracterization of the meaning of Easter in an online story on Pope Francis posted [...]

Would the US State Department consider “monitoring” the election of a pope?

Check out this snippet from last Friday’s daily briefing with reporters. The briefer is Victoria Nuland. I think they were kidding.  But these days, it’s hard to tell. QUESTION: Vatican. MS. NULAND: What about the Vatican? QUESTION: Well, do you regard it as a free and fair exercise in electing a leader of a country? MS. NULAND: We did [...]

Covering the conclave: how the Italian press drives the story

How does media coverage of the Vatican work?  Some insight from someone who knows, via web journalist Tom McGeveran:  I Skyped Jason Horowitz, an old colleague of mine who’s been dispatched to the Vatican by The Washington Post, and who worked a while back in the New York Times’ Rome bureau, for some perspective. And immediately we got [...]