Profile
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November 06, 2008 01:30 PM
The Enthusiast
Why you should trust the literary critic John Leonard on the coarsening of our intellectual culture.
Cultural critic John Leonard died Wednesday night at the age of sixty-nine. The following profile, by Meghan O'Rourke, was published in CJR's January/February 2007 issue.
John Leonard was a literary prodigy who became editor of The New York Times Book Review at the tender age of thirty-two; today he is sixty-seven, and during a recent interview with Bill Moyers,...
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March 27, 2008 09:00 AM
Blogging the Long War
Bill Roggio wants to be your source for conflict coverage
For much of the twentieth century, Americans co-existed with the country’s armed forces in a way we don’t anymore. In the 1940s and ’50s, millions of Americans served in the fight against imperial Japan and Hitler’s Germany, as well as Kim Il Sung’s North Korea and its Chinese allies; in the sixties, millions of boomers wore the uniform in...
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January 03, 2008 09:00 AM
The Redemption of Chris Rose
Like his city and his newspaper, a survivor
On a breezy Sunday morning in October 2006, residents of New Orleans—displaced, exhausted, wondering if they would live to see their city’s resurrection—woke to one of the most audacious acts of mass psychotherapy ever performed by an American newspaper. It took place under an unlikely byline. Chris Rose, a columnist for the daily Times-Picayune, was once known primarily for...
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July 05, 2007 10:55 AM
Bending to Power
How Rupert Murdoch built his empire, and how he uses it
“There might be other buyers more palatable to them. But who’s to say Rupert Murdoch is all that bad?”
Brian Rogers of T. Rowe Price, advising the Bancrofts to sell The Wall Street Journal.
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The answer to this question depends on what you mean by bad—or good—and on who is a credible witness. Robert Thomson,... -
May 10, 2007 01:02 PM
The Shield Bearer
How a conservative congressman from Indiana became journalism’s best ally in the fight to protect anonymous sources.
Representative Mike Pence, a fourth-term Republican, delivers his speech with the cadence of a southern minister. “Over and over the media tells us America is tired of the war. Yes, America is tired. It’s tired of what we’re being told about this war,” he says, his voice rising and his face tightening. “It’s tired of the incessant negativity. Tired...
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March 01, 2007 08:30 AM
Capturing Cuba
Ann Louise Bardach has spent fifteen years in relentless pursuit of the island nation, its dictator, its exiles, and their secrets.
I met Ann Louise Bardach at her home in Santa Barbara one afternoon in early January. I was running late because of traffic and just before I arrived, she called to inform me that I had missed something “very big.” As she breathlessly led me into the kitchen of the modest-sized bungalow she shares with her husband, the actor...
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January 01, 2007 08:30 AM
Vanity Fire
Graydon Carter’s political outrage has fueled a resurgence in Vanity Fair’s serious journalism. But how far can he push the signature high-low mix of this Conde Nast cash cow?
David Hirschman’s question for a 2004 Media Bistro article was the same one reporters had been asking Graydon Carter for more than a year: “Do you plan to keep Vanity Fair more political?” Hirschman was referring to the magazine generally and to Carter’s ferocious editor’s letters in particular, which, since 2003, had become an outlet for his disgust with...
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Desks
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- Above the Fold: Kaiser on NYT Torture Story Inside Times’s one-sided sourcing on torture story
- Talking Shop: Gail Collins The New York Times columnist on caucuses, campaigning, and the glory of deadlines
The Audit Business
- WSJ Watchdogs Sketchy Conseco Insurance Move
- Ebony on the Fall of Detroit The magazine reports the U.S. car industry’s demise is hitting blacks especially hard