Tag Archives: journalism

An old-fashioned take-down

Becca Rothfeld’s book review “Lauren Oyler thinks she is better than you” is a thorough evisceration of Oyler’s book No Judgment. You don’t see many reviews like this these days. Critics that attack books typically go after the author’s political … Continue reading

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Threads and news reporting

In part as a consequence of the Israel-Hamas war, more journalists are posting news and analysis on Meta’s Threads platform. From QZ’s Ananya Bhattacharya: Since its inception, Threads has decided to steer clear of handling hard news—and the Israel-Hamas war … Continue reading

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Newspaper names: a charming taxonomy

We are fans of Jay Rosen here at No Contest.

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Best answer yet to that question

By rocker Susanna Hoffs: It’s worth it for me to remember that, because I am a bit of a snob formalist when it comes to evaluating published writing (prose or verse). The NYTimes “By the Book” series is always fun, … Continue reading

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Apropos The Georgia Straight

Dan Savage was not exaggerating the problems faced by alt-weeklies in recent years. From The Tyee last week: The crew at the Georgia Straight wrote until the bitter end, filing stories and chronicling Vancouver’s culture after the paycheques stopped flowing … Continue reading

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Savage Love

The prose of Dan Savage is bold and crystal clear – and edifying to a profound degree. It always has been. I started reading his column in the San Francisco’s alt-weekly back in the early 90s and kept up that … Continue reading

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How to write a lede

From the Irish Times: Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to … Continue reading

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Retraction Watch

A student recently alerted me to this splendid website and resource. It’s endlessly useful and interesting – a gift to researchers of all stripes, including students, teachers, scientists, and journalists. Some praise: “The seamier side of academia, lying, cheating and … Continue reading

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I wish I had written this.

Back in the day a journalist for the Norfolk Pilot newspaper got his copy back from his editor with this note: “Sorry it’s so short but a certain amount of muck, spleen, libel, hogwash, garbage, neologism, prurience, presumption, assumption, half-assumption, … Continue reading

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When in doubt …

… draw a distinction, says Jay Rosen.

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