Department Index
Press Box 2008:
Media criticism.
If you'd like to sort this department listing by headline, author or date, please use the Slate search.
- (Another) Bogus Trend of the Week: a Plague of Shoplifters! The New York Times and Washington Post get snowed by the retail industry.
Dec. 24, 2008 - Bogus Trend of the Week: Booming Evangelical Attendance A Gallup editor punctures a religion bubble at the New York Times.
Dec. 22, 2008 - The Digital Slay-Ride What's killing newspapers is the same thing that killed the slide rule.
Dec. 17, 2008 - Bogus Trend of the Week: Teens and Bombs CBS News With Katie Couric hypes a nontrend.
Dec. 11, 2008 - Sympathy for Blago Granted, he's a sleaze, but how solid is the government's case?
Dec. 10, 2008 - Unsolicited Advice for David Gregory Upon taking the wheel at Meet the Press.
Dec. 9, 2008 - The Fog of Breaking News Why you should take reports from the scene of a massacre with a grain of salt.
Dec. 3, 2008 - Reunderstanding Rupert Murdoch Michael Wolff's new biography accepts the mogul on his own sordid terms.
Dec. 2, 2008 - Rupert Murdoch and the Reverse Ferret Explaining the mogul's flattering treatment of Barack Obama in the New York Post.
Nov. 17, 2008 - Crazy About Guns The press spooks its readers about increased gun purchases.
Nov. 13, 2008 - Don't Count Drudge Out His demise is overreported once again.
Nov. 10, 2008 - Rahm Emanuel, Press Tamer What to expect as Clinton's enforcer becomes Obama's chief of staff.
Nov. 6, 2008 - Wolf Blitzer Is "Watching Very Closely" A crash course in Blitzer-ese.
Nov. 5, 2008 - The Coming Obama-Press War It's inevitable.
Nov. 3, 2008 - The Liberal Media and How To Stop It You can't. But these days, how much does it matter?
Oct. 29, 2008 - Countdown to the Obama Rapture Watch as the press corps battles its performance anxiety!
Oct. 27, 2008 - Stolen Elections—as American as Apple Pie Dissecting John McCain's hyperbole about voter fraud.
Oct. 21, 2008 - A McCain Victory Survival Kit A just-in-case guide for reporters just in case Obama collapses.
Oct. 14, 2008 - Good News From the Coming Depression Journalists are already finding it!
Oct. 10, 2008 - Bogus Trend of the Week: Dudes With Cats The New York Times' Sunday Styles section detects a new craze.
Oct. 7, 2008 - This "Town Hall" Debate Is Neither It's more a dance recital than an honest head-to-head between the candidates.
Oct. 6, 2008 - Don't Blame Gwen Ifill If the Veep Debate Sucks What a stupid format.
Oct. 1, 2008 - When Wall Street Bet on Elections "Roosevelt New York Odds Drop to 7 to 5" and other headlines from a century ago.
Sept. 26, 2008 - McCain Bites the Press Just because the press loves Obama doesn't mean it hates McCain.
Sept. 23, 2008 - Bill O'Reilly's "Shut Up" Revisionism According to the talk show host, he rarely uses the phrase.
Sept. 17, 2008 - Fannie Mae and the Vast Bipartisan Conspiracy A list of villains in boldface.
Sept. 16, 2008 - Palin vs. Gibson, Round 2 The reporter goes limp and forfeits to the candidate.
Sept. 13, 2008 - Palin vs. Gibson, Round 1 The ABC News anchor flummoxes the GOP amateur.
Sept. 12, 2008 - The Kennedy Center Dishonors The award program the Washington Post loves to slobber over.
Sept. 11, 2008 - 10 Questions for Sarah Palin What ABC News anchor Charles Gibson should ask the candidate.
Sept. 9, 2008 - How Palin Will Beat the Press She'll run as the new Spiro Agnew.
Sept. 4, 2008 - Hurricane Palin McCain creates a disaster story for the news-starved press.
Sept. 2, 2008 - How To Watch the Campaign on TV Imagine that you're viewing it through the eyes of Fox News honcho Roger Ailes.
Aug. 29, 2008 - Why Convention Coverage Can't Be Olympian There's nothing NBC can teach the convention planners.
Aug. 26, 2008 - What Kind of Plagiarist Is Joe Biden? The unusually creepy kind.
Aug. 25, 2008 - Timely Ledes From This Summer's New Yorkers They're all dated for your reading safety.
Aug. 21, 2008 - Veep Creep The long, drawn-out faux drama of picking a running mate.
Aug. 19, 2008 - Conventional Nonsense Making the case for a press boycott of the national political conventions.
Aug. 13, 2008 - What's Really Killing Newspapers They're no longer the best providers of social currency.
Aug. 1, 2008 - The Untouchable Why nothing the press throws at Obama sticks.
July 30, 2008 - What Does Rupert Murdoch Want? Former Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Paul Steiger hasn't a clue.
July 25, 2008 - Why the Press Is Ignoring the Edwards "Love Child" Story A double standard is at work.
July 23, 2008 - A Midsummer Harvest of Bogus Trend Stories Drivel from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe.
July 22, 2008 - Building a Better Anonymice Trap Messrs. Starkman and Jelveh show the way.
July 18, 2008 - Tracking the Anonymice See how they run in the Post, the Timeses, and the Journal.
July 15, 2008 - The New Yorker Draws Fire Barry Blitt's cover illustration of the Obamas wigs out the chattering classes.
July 14, 2008 - Advice for Marcus Brauchli Of the unsolicited variety as he ascends to the executive editorship of the Washington Post.
July 8, 2008 - What's Killing America's Drug Users? It all depends on how you look at the data.
July 3, 2008 - How To Write for the Web Caleb Crain explains it for you.
June 24, 2008 - Novak, Russert, and the Washington Protection Racket Novak and his partner in logrolling, Tim Russert.
June 20, 2008 - The Canonization of Saint Russert The media overdo the death of a journalist.
June 16, 2008 - Is the Journal Getting … Better? Despite Murdoch (or maybe because of Murdoch), it's on a tear.
June 13, 2008 - The Bilderberg
"Blackout" The press corps' noncoverage of that weekend conference in Chantilly, Va.
June 10, 2008 - Fox News 1.0 Revisiting TVN, Roger Ailes' first stab at running a TV news operation.
June 5, 2008 - Hillary Didn't Lose. Barack Won. An idiosyncratic reading of today's presidential campaign post-mortems.
June 4, 2008 - Bill Clinton, Press Critic His critique of the Vanity Fair piece about him starts strong and then collapses.
June 2, 2008 - Michael Crichton, Vindicated His 1993 prediction of mass-media extinction now looks on target.
May 29, 2008 - Bloggy Tuesday A McCain-New York Times Feud?; Fishy Friday; JFK on speed; what the hell is "affordable housing"?
May 27, 2008 - My Frank Rich Bitch Will the Times' ethics cops please leave him be?
May 22, 2008 - The Next Editor of the Washington Post Who should it be?
May 20, 2008 - Puffing Rauschenberg The dailies slobber all over the dead artist.
May 14, 2008 - Weird Lede of the Week The Wall Street Journal hypes a nonexistent "backlash."
May 13, 2008 - The Worst Show on a Cable News Network It's still The Journal Editorial Report.
May 12, 2008 - The Russert to Judgment So now the TV pundits tell us an Obama nomination is certain.
May 8, 2008 - Salvia Divinorum Hysteria The press helps fuel the next "drug menace."
May 6, 2008 - Let Murdoch Be Murdoch Abolish the powerless Wall Street Journal Special Committee.
April 30, 2008 - The Times Travel Section Plays Hide the Salami As Austin Powers would say, "Very shagadelic!"
April 29, 2008 - Rupert Murdoch's Favorite Lie As long as he insists on telling it, I'll keep calling it out.
April 24, 2008 - Don Corleone Murdoch? In which Newsweek alleges that Norm Pearlstine and John Huey kissed the godfather's ring.
April 23, 2008 - Source Hygiene If reporters practiced better "source hygiene," maybe they'd face fewer subpoenas.
April 17, 2008 - We Don't Need No Stinkin' Shield Law, Part 2 The First Amendment belongs to citizens, not the corporate press.
April 16, 2008 - We Don't Need No Stinkin' Shield Law, Part 1 The Free Flow of Information Act would be a nightmare for journalists.
April 15, 2008 - What? You've Not Been Honored by the Webbys? If there is a less exclusive award on the planet, I've yet to hear of it.
April 9, 2008 - Two Cheers for Newsroom Buyouts The good news about the bad news coming out of newsrooms.
April 7, 2008 - Links That Stink Grumbling about the misuse of hyperlinks on news sites.
April 3, 2008 - Rupert Murdoch Is Not the Antichrist Proof revealed at Georgetown University.
April 2, 2008 - The Times' New Welcome Mat The paper's design director defends its expanded summary pages.
April 1, 2008 - The States Are Falling, the States Are Falling! The press corps plays Chicken Little.
March 31, 2008 - Biggie Mistake How Chuck Philips and the L.A. Times could have dodged the Tupac hoaxer.
March 27, 2008 - The '60s Version of a Pharm Party "Fruit salad parties." You think I'm kidding. I'm not.
March 26, 2008 - Down on the Pharm, Again Debunking "pharm parties" for the third time.
March 25, 2008 - Bloggy Monday Murdoch gets beat; a Portfolio blog item mysteriously vanishes; and do TV minutes matter?
March 24, 2008 - The Fibbing Point Separating bunk from fact in Malcolm Gladwell's performance at a New York storytelling forum.
March 19, 2008 - From Assembly Line to Network at the Post The Washington Post's plan to drag the editing process into the 21st century.
March 14, 2008 - Did the Press Service Spitzer? That's what Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly A. Strassel would have you believe.
March 13, 2008 - Plagiarism and Apology The New York Times lifts from City Hall.
March 11, 2008 - Eight Reasons Plagiarism Sucks It harms readers, in its heart beats a lie, it corrupts, and five more.
March 7, 2008 - More Plagiarism, Same Times Reporter Alexei Barrionuevo helps himself to Bloomberg News copy without attribution.
March 5, 2008 - Watching McClatchy (First in a Series) As a leading indicator of the newspaper biz's health, what does the chain's bad news portend for the rest of the industry?
March 3, 2008 - Murdoch Minion Spikes Review of Murdoch Book "Anticipatory compliance" at the Far Eastern Economic Review.
Feb. 28, 2008 - The Times Plagiarizes the Miami Herald A Page One story lifts two lines about an illicit drug.
Feb. 27, 2008 - McCain's Smoking Blonde In defense of the New York Times' takedown.
Feb. 21, 2008 - Don't Call It Plagiarism Obama's sound bite, considered.
Feb. 19, 2008 - How Obama Does That Thing He Does A professor of rhetoric cracks the candidate's code.
Feb. 14, 2008 - The Political Re-Education of Rupert Murdoch A new book by the mogul's former right-hand man in China tells nearly all.
Feb. 12, 2008 - Down With the Newseum! We don't need a gilded home for 6,214 journalism artifacts.
Feb. 7, 2008 - Wall to Wall to Wal-Mart Political Coverage In this press-saturated campaign, no voter is underserved.
Feb. 5, 2008 - The Corrections Craig Silverman catalogs the media's errors—and his own.
Feb. 1, 2008 - A Test for the Murdoch Street Journal How will it cover a new book alleging Rupert Murdoch's kowtowing to the Chinese?
Jan. 31, 2008 - "Fishermen Beat Rare Dolphin to Death" And other tabloid headlines from CNN.com, MSNBC.com, and Foxnews.com.
Jan. 30, 2008 - The Times' Fishy Story Nevermind that scaremongering story about mercury-tainted sushi.
Jan. 25, 2008 - In Praise of Horse-Race Coverage If campaigns are contests, then why not obsess on who's winning?
Jan. 24, 2008 - Simple Simon What the auteur of The Wire doesn't (and does) understand about the newspaper business.
Jan. 22, 2008 - Stupidest Drug Story of the Week The New York Times raves about meth-laced ecstasy.
Jan. 10, 2008 - "The Best Political Team on Television"? On election night, CNN runs its preposterous slogan into the ground.
Jan. 9, 2008 - Tipsy on Bipartisanship Obama, Bloomberg, and the press get drunk on compromise, cooperation, and civility.
Jan. 9, 2008 - Reading the Murdoch Street Journal Where is the rotten old bastard taking his latest acquisition?
Jan. 4, 2008 - Who's Afraid of Bill Kristol? Nora Ephron, Josh Marshall, Jane Smiley, David Corn, Erica Jong, Katha Pollitt, and nearly every liberal with a blogging account.
Jan. 3, 2008 - The Whiskey Rebellion In praise of booze in the newsroom.
Jan. 2, 2008
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