PressThink

• He Said, She Said Journalism: Lame Formula in the Land of the Active User

  Any good blogger, competing journalist or alert press critic can spot and publicize false balance and the lame acceptance of fact-free spin. Do users really want to be left helpless in sorting out who's faking it more? The he said, she said form says they do, but I say decline [...]
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  Posted: April 12, 2009, 12:46pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Introducing the new Huffington Post Investigative Fund (And My Own Role in It)

  "The announcement of its birth, along with the $1.75 million starter budget, is really the launch of a new Internet-based news organization with a focus on original reporting. You might say the Fund's operating principle is: report once, run anywhere." [...]
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  Posted: March 30, 2009, 2:37am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Rosen's Flying Seminar In The Future of News

  For March 2009. The pace quickened after Clay Shirky's Thinking the Unthinkable. Here's my best-of from a month of deep think as people came to terms with the collapse of the newspaper model, and tried looking ahead. I know these twelve links work. I tested them on Twitter. [...]
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  Posted: March 26, 2009, 2:08am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• It Took 23 Years, But I Finally Got to Give My View of the National Press on National Television

  I was a guest on Bill Moyers Journal (PBS, Feb. 6) along with Salon's Glenn Greenwald. We talked about pundits and reporters as an establishment institution, and whether Obama can be a disruptive force.' [...]
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  Posted: February 06, 2009, 11:57pm EST
  by Jay Rosen

• It Took 23 Years, But I Finally Got to Give My View of the National Press on National TV

  I was a guest on Bill Moyers Journal (PBS, Feb. 6) along with Salon's Glenn Greenwald. We talked about pundits and reporters as an establishment institution, and whether Obama can be a disruptive force. [...]
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  Posted: February 06, 2009, 11:57pm EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Write it Yourself: My Advice to Barack Obama

  "Obama may have inaugurated a new style in press relations: not the warm embrace, or out in the cold. Neither feed the beast, nor win the week. I will just call it the cool style, and let others more learned in American cool unfold what it means for our president." [...]
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  Posted: January 20, 2009, 5:00am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Audience Atomization Overcome: Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press

  In the age of mass media, the press was able to define the sphere of legitimate debate with relative ease because the people on the receiving end were atomized-- connected "up" to Big Media but not across to each other. And now that authority is eroding. I will try to [...]
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  Posted: January 12, 2009, 12:02am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Help Me Explain Twitter to Eggheads

  I have a nifty assignment from Chronicle of Higher Education to write about why I'm on Twitter. Personal essay, 1200 words, for print and online. Wanna help? If you're on Twitter, tell me what you use it for. [...]
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  Posted: January 04, 2009, 12:50pm EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Make Something Valuable to Journalism and Give it Away: Stanford Re-Deploys its Journalism Fellows

  In which I interview the director, Jim Bettinger, on why one of the most prestigious mid-career fellowship programs in the U.S. has shifted its focus to innovation and entrepreneurship in journalism. "Our epiphany came sometime in the fall of 2005," he says. [...]
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  Posted: December 30, 2008, 12:42am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• If Bloggers Had No Ethics Blogging Would Have Failed, But it Didn't. So Let's Get a Clue.

  "Those in journalism who want to bring ethics to blogging ought to start with why people trust (some) bloggers, not with an ethics template made for a prior platform operating as a closed system in a one-to-many world." [...]
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  Posted: September 18, 2008, 11:22am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• The Palin Convention and the Culture War Option are Now in Motion

  John McCain's convention gambit calls for culture war around the Sarah Palin pick. The Politico is reporting it tonight: Palin reignites culture wars. An option is forming. My attempt to describe it before her big speech. [...]
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  Posted: September 03, 2008, 1:22am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• The Palin Convention and the Culture War Option

  John McCain's convention gambit calls for culture war around the Sarah Palin pick. And now The Politico is reporting just that: Palin reignites culture wars. An option is forming. This is my attempt to describe it before her big speech in St. Paul. [...]
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  Posted: September 03, 2008, 1:22am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• The Hype Busting at Mother Jones is a Bust

  Has Obama compared his campaign to the great movements in progressive history, like civil rights? Mother Jones says he has. What were the editors thinking? And why aren't they linking? [...]
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  Posted: August 20, 2008, 1:44am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Hype Busting at Mother Jones Goes Bust

  Has Obama compared his campaign to the great movements in progressive history, like civil rights? Mother Jones says he has. What were the editors thinking? And why aren't they linking? [...]
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  Posted: August 20, 2008, 1:44am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• National Explainer: A Job for Journalists on the Demand Side of News

  This American Life's great mortgage crisis explainer, The Giant Pool of Money, suggests that "information" and "explanation" ought to be reversed in our order of thought. Especially as we contemplate new news systems. [...]
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  Posted: August 13, 2008, 12:18pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• "The Whole Anthrax Case Would Make For a Good Journalism Class." Brian Ross Responds.

  This week Dan Gillmor and I posted our questions for ABC News about its reporting in October, 2001 linking anthrax attacks in the US to Iraq. Brian Ross, the reporter on the case, has now responded. But I wouldn't say he brought clarity to the matter. [...]
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  Posted: August 07, 2008, 1:54am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Three Vital Questions for ABC News About its Anthrax Reporting in 2001

  "On Saturday morning, Dan Gillmor and I had the same thought when we read Glenn Greenwald's post: ABC News has to respond. But to what, exactly? We tried to put it into three questions: tough but fair as people there would probably say on other occasions." [...]
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  Posted: August 04, 2008, 1:11am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• A Most Useful Definition of Citizen Journalism

  It's mine, but it should be yours. Can we take the quote marks off now? Can we remove the "so-called" from in front? [...]
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  Posted: July 14, 2008, 2:37am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Big Daddy Newspaper Left Journalism. It's Just Us.

  Tree House Media Project Debuts. Self-reliance for angry journalists, preached by a former member of the tribe. Plus: "Last gasp of the curmudgeon class." NEWSROOM ID EXPLODES LIKE FIREWORKS OVER INTERN'S UPBEAT BLOG POST. Newspaper revanchism 'splained. [...]
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  Posted: July 08, 2008, 2:24pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Big Daddy Newspaper Has Gone and Left Journalism

  Tree House Media Project Debuts. Self-reliance for angry journalists, preached by a former member of the tribe. Plus: "Last gasp of the curmudgeon class." NEWSROOM ID EXPLODES LIKE FIREWORKS OVER INTERN'S UPBEAT BLOG POST. Newspaper revanchism 'splained. [...]
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  Posted: July 08, 2008, 2:24pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Migration Point for the Press Tribe

  "Like reluctant migrants everywhere, the people in the news tribe have to decide what to take with them. When to leave. Where to land. They have to figure out what is essential to their way of life. They have to ask if what they know is portable." [...]
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  Posted: June 26, 2008, 2:40am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Update on Beatblogging.org Six Months In

  David Cohn is moving on to figure out if crowd funding can be made to work for news. Another young web-savvy journalist is moving in: Patrick Thornton. He's going "scour the Web for the people who are pushing the practice of beat reporting." [...]
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  Posted: June 19, 2008, 1:42am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Filter the Best Stuff to the Front Page: OffTheBus and NewsTrust.Net Do a Demo Project

  OffTheBus and NewsTrust.Net ran a little test two weeks ago. It's a crowdsourced week in review feature for high quality John McCain coverage, June 2 to 9. Here's the background and results. [...]
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  Posted: June 16, 2008, 5:30pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Filter the Best Stuff to the Front Page: A Demo

  OffTheBus and NewsTrust.Net ran a little test two weeks ago. It's a crowdsourced week in review feature for high quality John McCain coverage, June 2 to 9. Here's the background and results. [...]
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  Posted: June 16, 2008, 5:30pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• When Mayhill Fowler Met Bill Clinton at the Rope Line

  "Trust me because I mask my true feelings about the matter" is not an inherently better way to journalize or gain cred. "Trust me because I show you what my true feelings on the matter are..." can also work. And if it has pro and amateur wings maybe the press [...]
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  Posted: June 09, 2008, 12:57pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• What Happened to Scott McClellan in Longer Perspective: 100 Years of the White House Press

  I never expected McClellan to write a book about being the jerk at the podium for Bush, or to make connections between his experience and the larger wreckage of the Bush presidency. But he's done just that. [...]
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  Posted: May 29, 2008, 3:15pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Looking for the Mouse in Media: Clay Shirky on Deploying the Cognitive Surplus for Public Good

  "The imagery is geological: the release of trapped deposits. He thinks we can reverse the time sink for people once marooned on the receiving end of a one-way system that didn’t care what you thought or brought to it, since it couldn’t afford the costs of interacting with you." [...]
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  Posted: May 06, 2008, 11:15pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• The Presses Have Stopped But the Press Goes On: Capital Times Lives on the Web

  The Cap Times was re-born to Madison on Saturday. Ambivalence was felt about the lost authority of print-on-paper news. Generational blues were sung, a flying leap taken. Now a progressive newspaper must make progress on the Web. [...]
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  Posted: April 28, 2008, 2:08am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• The Presses Stop But the Press Goes On: Capital Times Lives on the Web

  The Cap Times was re-born to Madison on Saturday. Ambivalence was felt about the lost authority of print-on-paper news. Generational blues were sung, a flying leap taken. Now a progressive newspaper must make real progress on the Web. [...]
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  Posted: April 28, 2008, 2:08am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• "Where's the Business Model for News, People?"

  It’s remarkable to me how many accomplished producers of those goods the future production of which is in doubt are still at the stage of asking other people, “How are we going to pay our reporters if you guys don’t want to pay for our news?” [...]
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  Posted: April 22, 2008, 1:04am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• From Off The Bus to Meet the Press

  In between there is uncharted territory. Mayhill Fowler's report quoting Barack Obama at a fundraiser ("It's not surprising then they get bitter") was posted at OffTheBus Friday afternoon. By Sunday morning Tim Russert had it top of show. How it happened. Why we did it. [...]
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  Posted: April 15, 2008, 3:14pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• The Love Affair Between McCain and the Press Sprains the Brain of the Liberal Blogosphere

  "Though I await further reports, talk of some blogospheric war makes little sense to me. We're in a dynamic situation here. And one of the biggest unknowns is: will Obama match McCain in radical openness with the press?" [...]
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  Posted: March 31, 2008, 2:18am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Just How Did John McCain Obtain What He Has in the Bank with the Press?

  "Maybe Iran is training Al Qaeda is McCain's way of signaling that he intends to pick up where Bush and Cheney left off in discarding the whole reality-based approach to policy-making and public communication." [...]
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  Posted: March 26, 2008, 1:57am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Obama tells the Best Political Team on Television: You Have a Choice

  In Wolf Blitzer's instant analysis, Obama's big speech on race in America boils down to a "pre-emptive strike" against attacks yet to come. In fact it was a speech aimed right at him and other makers of political television. [...]
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  Posted: March 18, 2008, 2:55pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Getting the Politics of the Press Right: Walter Pincus Rips into Newsroom Neutrality

  The important thing is to show integrity-- not to be a neuter, politically. And having good facts that hold up is a bigger advantage than claiming to reflect all sides equally well. [...]
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  Posted: March 14, 2008, 11:36am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• "An Attractively Against-the-Grain Enterprise..."

  When editors try to provoke and newspapers dance in front of the mirror: the perils of misguided contrarianism. "If the Post is willing to smash idols like that--women's equality--it must be a pretty broad-minded place, right?" [...]
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  Posted: March 04, 2008, 1:11am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Three Vetting Stories Went Awry at the New York Times: Find the Pattern.

  Obama's drug use. Hillary's marriage. McCain's lobbyist. The New York Times made weird decisions in all three. So what gives? [...]
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  Posted: February 28, 2008, 1:47pm EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Public Editor to Bill Keller: "You Haven't Got it."

  Clark Hoyt's verdict: wrong to run. Mine: "Times editors are extremely smart people prevented by their own codes from thinking politically. Yet those same codes permit intrusions into politics, like the Vicki Iseman story, that require them to think politically or risk terrible missteps." [...]
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  Posted: February 25, 2008, 1:03am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Cliff Notes Version of the Q and A with New York Times Readers About the McCain Investigation

  Here is my condensed, re-aranged version of the Q and A with readers that ran in the New York Times Feb. 21. It was meant to explain the decision-making that went into its article on John McCain's involvement with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. [...]
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  Posted: February 25, 2008, 1:01am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• For the New York Times, Too, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Risks

  "From the looks of it, the paper is going to have to fight for its story--and its ethics--in the court of public opinion, but this is not something the Times is ever comfortable doing..." [...]
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  Posted: February 21, 2008, 10:15am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• The Campaign Press is a Herd of Independent Minds

  I've got a big new piece up at tomdispatch.com (and at Salon.com). My attempt to move beyond lamenting horse race journalism to explain why it persists. "Campaign reporters tend to be massively other-directed. The reality-check is what the rest of the press is doing." [...]
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  Posted: January 20, 2008, 10:38pm EST
  by Jay Rosen

• "Most of them are not ideologically driven; they just want to get on the front page."

  Huckenfreude is one case. "Like the social conservatives who deserve a seat on the bus but shouldn?t be allowed to drive it, the yahoos who think the press is a tool of the Democratic party are needed but should not be heeded by conservatives in power." [...]
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  Posted: December 29, 2007, 1:01am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• A Stooge Figure Speaks

  "McClellan's specialty was not lying, or the traditional art of spin, but what I have called 'strategic non-communication.' Lying we understand; spin we have to come to grasp. Non-communication we still do not appreciate. Its purpose is to make executive power less legible." [...]
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  Posted: November 25, 2007, 1:20am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• These Beat Reporters Will Try the Social Network Way

  Thirteen sites want to see if it works: from the Houston Chronicle to the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, PA, plus ESPN.com, MTV, the Seattle Times... Some of the beats: Child welfare, Dallas public schools, "green" tech, Big Pharma, digital music, Procter & Gamble. [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2007, 5:31am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Out in the Great Wide Open

  By now you may have heard about the implosion of Wide Open, a political blog started by the Cleveland Plain Dealer with four "outside" voices brought in from the ranks of Ohio bloggers: two left, two right. Twelve points you may not have seen elsewhere. [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2007, 1:04am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Beat Reporting With a Social Network: Can it Work?

  Are there network effects in beat reporting? Across the US, a dozen reporters (with beats) are going to try to find out?simultaneously. This will improve their odds of succeeding. I'm still recruiting participants, so read on... [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2007, 12:31pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Okay, Ready? My Coordinates for a Successful News Site

  I'm at the Online News Association's conference in Toronto. Listening to some of the speakers at the J-Lab's workshop, absorbing the talk at last week's Networked Journalism Summit, and adding what I've learned from doing PressThink, the model I see emerging would combine... [...]
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  Posted: October 18, 2007, 2:05am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• What I Learned from Assignment Zero

  As some of us conference at CUNY around networked journalism, here are my coordinates for the territory we need to be searching. I got them from doing a distributed trend story with Wired.com and thinking through the results. [...]
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  Posted: October 09, 2007, 5:01pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Rather Unbound Will Redo the Killian Memos Story

  Dan Rather, the reporter who never gives up, lives again on the public stage. World may call it a lawsuit. In Rather's mind, he's got a crack team of reporters, they can get people to talk, and they're chasing the story that CBS in its cowardice dropped. [...]
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  Posted: September 21, 2007, 4:30pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Consent Decree with the Open Web Shuts Down Times Select

  "That's the decision in Web court accepted by the New York Times. Dismisses all courses of action against Google. Times agrees to drop Times Select, which was a barrier to Google--and the blogosphere--working the right way." [...]
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  Posted: September 19, 2007, 12:13am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Note From the Castle: White House Correspondent Writes to PressThink, Explains the Body Watch

  Person who wrote to me is for real. Has one of the seats. Does not want to be named. I don't generally run things like that. But this is straight from the briefing room to correct PressThink on a few items. So I found a way. [...]
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  Posted: September 14, 2007, 1:31am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• The Master Narrative that Went Missing During the Bush Years Turns Up in Charlie Savage's Book

  Unbuilding the Bush presidency: does your candidate support that? Which parts? And if you don't know, isn't that a case of: Iowa, we have a problem? [...]
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  Posted: September 12, 2007, 2:09am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• When We Try to Explain the Rout of the Press under George W. Bush

  A few factors that tend to get overlooked... [...]
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  Posted: September 04, 2007, 1:45am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Blowback: The journalism that bloggers actually do...

  ...has been published at the Los Angeles Times site, along with a cryptic editor's note, and a brief appearance by Michael Skube. [...]
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  Posted: August 22, 2007, 7:49pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Blowback: The journalism that bloggers actually do...

  ...has been published at the Los Angeles Times site, along with a cryptic editor's note, and a brief appearance by Michael Skube. [...]
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  Posted: August 22, 2007, 6:49pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Help Make my Blowback Post to Michael Skube a Little More Sound; LATimes.com to Run With It

  By this afternoon I need a better list. [...]
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  Posted: August 21, 2007, 3:35pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Help make my Blowback post to Michael Skube a little more sound; LATimes.com to run with it

  By this afternoon I need a better list. [...]
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  Posted: August 21, 2007, 2:35pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• My advice? Retire.

  Commentary on Blogs: All the noise that fits by Michael Skube in the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 19, 2007. [...]
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  Posted: August 20, 2007, 1:09am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• My advice? Retire.

  Commentary on Blogs: All the noise that fits by Michael Skube in the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 19, 2007. [...]
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  Posted: August 20, 2007, 12:09am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Karl Rove and the Religion of the Washington Press

  "Savviness--that quality of being shrewd, practical, well-informed, perceptive, ironic, 'with it,' and unsentimental in all things political--is, in a sense, their professional religion. They make a cult of it. And it was this cult that Karl Rove understood and exploited for political gain." [...]
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  Posted: August 14, 2007, 2:48am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Karl Rove and the Religion of the Washington Press

  "Savviness--that quality of being shrewd, practical, well-informed, perceptive, ironic, 'with it,' and unsentimental in all things political--is, in a sense, their professional religion. They make a cult of it. And it was this cult that Karl Rove understood and exploited for political gain." [...]
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  Posted: August 14, 2007, 1:48am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Why Do We Suck? and Other Questions Political Journalists Asked Themselves at YearlyKos

  I've been reviewing the press coverage, blogging and video from the Yearly Kos conference in Chicago and trying to make some sense of what happened between the press and the liberal blogosphere at this event. The main conclusion I have is.... [...]
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  Posted: August 05, 2007, 10:03pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Why Do We Suck? and Other Questions Political Journalists Asked Themselves at YearlyKos

  I've been reviewing the press coverage, blogging and video from the Yearly Kos conference in Chicago and trying to make some sense of what happened between the press and the liberal blogosphere at this event. The main conclusion I have is.... [...]
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  Posted: August 05, 2007, 9:03pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• The Press Lives "Off" Politics, The Kossacks Live For It

  Notes and comment from day one of YearlyKos [...]
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  Posted: August 03, 2007, 2:39am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• The Press Lives "Off" Politics, The Kossacks Live For It

  Notes and comment from day one of YearlyKos [...]
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  Posted: August 03, 2007, 1:39am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• "Find Some New Information and Put it Into Your Post." Standards for Pro-Am Journalism at OffTheBus

  You can't write an FAQ like this until you have operated a while without it. People have to ask you questions, and from the actual frequency of some the list grows. "It’s not important to us that contributors keep opinion out. What’s important is that they put new information in." [...]
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  Posted: July 31, 2007, 1:41am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• "Find Some New Information and Put it Into Your Post." Standards for Pro-Am Journalism at OffTheBus

  You can't write an FAQ like this until you have operated a while without it. People have to ask you questions, and from the actual frequency of some the list grows. "It’s not important to us that contributors keep opinion out. What’s important is that they put new information in." [...]
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  Posted: July 31, 2007, 12:41am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Assignment Zero Lands. OffTheBus Launches. Lessons Fly.

  "A highly satisfying failure," Jeff Howe called it in Wired. No, "a spectacularly successful failure," says Beth Lawton at The Digital Edge. Meanwhile, OffTheBus.Net launched this week, carrying the lessons of "Zero" into political space. My Q and A with Len Witt explains more. [...]
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  Posted: July 20, 2007, 2:42am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Assignment Zero Lands. OffTheBus Launches. Lessons Fly.

  "A highly satisfying failure," Jeff Howe called it in Wired. No, "a spectacularly successful failure," says Beth Lawton at The Digital Edge. Meanwhile, OffTheBus.Net launched this week, carrying the lessons of "Zero" into political space. My Q and A with Len Witt explains more. [...]
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  Posted: July 20, 2007, 1:42am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Just the Sum of Us: James Surowiecki On What Crowds Can and Cannot Do

  Assignment Zero's final results appear on Wired.com this week, starting today. In honor of that, here's the interview Emily Gordon of Emdashes (a blog about the New Yorker) did with James Surowiecki, the New Yorker writer and author of The Wisdom of Crowds. He's not a romantic. [...]
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  Posted: July 09, 2007, 11:31am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Just the Sum of Us: James Surowiecki On What Crowds Can and Cannot Do

  Assignment Zero's final results appear on Wired.com this week, starting today. In honor of that, here's the interview Emily Gordon of Emdashes (a blog about the New Yorker) did with James Surowiecki, the New Yorker writer and author of The Wisdom of Crowds. He's not a romantic. [...]
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  Posted: July 09, 2007, 10:31am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• "Mother Jones invites you to question if the Politics 2.0 revolution really lives up to its hype."

  And PressThink asks whether the printing press progressives at Mother Jones have any kind of grip. "They saw the Internet and freaked: this can't be real. Recovering their bravery, they decided to debunk it." [...]
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  Posted: June 27, 2007, 6:04pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• "Mother Jones invites you to question if the Politics 2.0 revolution really lives up to its hype."

  And PressThink asks whether the printing press progressives at Mother Jones have any kind of grip. "They saw the Internet and freaked: this can't be real. Recovering their bravery, they decided to debunk it." [...]
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  Posted: June 27, 2007, 5:04pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• OffTheBus Hires Two People Who Know How to Organize 200: Amanda Michel and Zack Exley

  Michel will be Project Director. Exley, senior adviser and featured correspondent. Both could have worked for candidates in '08. Instead they chose to take what they learned from organizing campaigns on the Net and adapt it to political journalism in the open style. [...]
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  Posted: June 19, 2007, 12:59pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• OffTheBus Hires Two People Who Know How to Organize 200: Amanda Michel and Zack Exley

  Michel will be Project Director. Exley, senior adviser and featured correspondent. Both could have worked for candidates in '08. Instead they chose to take what they learned from organizing campaigns on the Net and adapt it to political journalism in the open style. [...]
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  Posted: June 19, 2007, 11:59am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Who's Ahead?

  It's nice to know that Mitt Romney has pulled ahead in New Hampshire, seven months before the primary voting. Thanks, Bill Schneider! Let me ask you something: Who's ahead in addressing a broken health care system? [...]
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  Posted: June 15, 2007, 2:06am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Who's Ahead? No, Seriously...

  It's nice to know that Mitt Romney has pulled ahead in New Hampshire, seven months before the primary voting. Thanks, Bill Schneider! Let me ask you something: Who's ahead in addressing a broken health care system? [...]
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  Posted: June 15, 2007, 2:06am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Who's Ahead? No, Seriously...

  It's nice to know that Mitt Romney has pulled ahead in New Hampshire, seven months before the primary voting. Thanks, Bill Schneider! Let me ask you something: Who's ahead in addressing a broken health care system? [...]
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  Posted: June 15, 2007, 1:06am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Twilight of the Curmudgeon Class

  Neil Henry (ex-Washington Post, now at Berkeley J-School) wants reparations from Google for what it's done to news. [...]
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  Posted: June 04, 2007, 2:23am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Twilight of the Curmudgeon Class

  Neil Henry (ex-Washington Post, now at Berkeley J-School) wants reparations from Google for what it's done to news. [...]
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  Posted: June 04, 2007, 1:23am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• "When the Press Fails..." From a New Book by Lance Bennett, Regina Lawrence, and Steven Livingston

  "In the end, despite the momentary recognition that it somehow blew the [pre-war] story, the mainstream press still seems to have missed the larger possibility that it blew the story precisely because of following its own unwritten but binding reporting principles." [...]
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  Posted: May 31, 2007, 9:50am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• "When the Press Fails..." From a New Book by Lance Bennett, Regina Lawrence, and Steven Livingston

  "In the end, despite the momentary recognition that it somehow blew the [pre-war] story, the mainstream press still seems to have missed the larger possibility that it blew the story precisely because of following its own unwritten but binding reporting principles." [...]
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  Posted: May 31, 2007, 8:50am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Howard Kurtz Sez: "The humble interview, the linchpin of journalism for centuries, is under assault."

  Kurtz asked me to do "an e-mail interview about doing e-mail interviews, or not doing interviews at all." I agreed. He also said "I'd be happy to have you publish the exchange [after] I write my story." So here it is. [...]
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  Posted: May 21, 2007, 1:57am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Howard Kurtz Sez: "The humble interview, the linchpin of journalism for centuries, is under assault."

  Kurtz asked me to do "an e-mail interview about doing e-mail interviews, or not doing interviews at all." I agreed. He also said "I'd be happy to have you publish the exchange [after] I write my story." So here it is. [...]
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  Posted: May 21, 2007, 12:57am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Interview Week at Assignment Zero: Anna Haynes is Questioning SusanG of Daily Kos

  PressThink's readers know more than one contributor does. So what follow-up questions do you have for SusanG? Here she speaks of "the fellowship that comes with collaboration in a country where many feel isolated and cut off from the truth." [...]
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  Posted: May 17, 2007, 11:39am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Interview Week at Assignment Zero: Anna Haynes is Questioning SusanG of Daily Kos

  PressThink's readers know more than one contributor does. So what follow-up questions do you have for SusanG? Here she speaks of "the fellowship that comes with collaboration in a country where many feel isolated and cut off from the truth." [...]
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  Posted: May 17, 2007, 10:39am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• An Exchange with Neil Lewis of the New York Times

  Neil Lewis, a Washington correspondent for the Times, wrote me about my criticisms of his colleague, Jim Rutenberg, in a previous post. Here's his letter, which he graciously agreed to make on-the-record, with my reply. [...]
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  Posted: May 08, 2007, 2:39pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• An Exchange with Neil Lewis of the New York Times

  Neil Lewis, a Washington correspondent for the Times, wrote me about my criticisms of his colleague, Jim Rutenberg, in a previous post. Here's his letter, which he graciously agreed to make on-the-record, with my reply. [...]
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  Posted: May 08, 2007, 1:39pm EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Assignment Zero, Updated. With Initial Results...

  We published the first piece from Assignment Zero. The project has morphed a bit. And we're introducing Interview Week. "Right now I'd say about 28 percent of what we did worked. But there's time to push that up." [...]
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  Posted: May 07, 2007, 2:21am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Assignment Zero, Updated. With Initial Results...

  We published the first piece from Assignment Zero. The project has morphed a bit. And we're introducing Interview Week. "Right now I'd say about 28 percent of what we did worked. But there's time to push that up." [...]
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  Posted: May 07, 2007, 1:21am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Last Week That Man Tried to Run You Over. Why Are You Having Dinner With Him?

  "Bush broke with the consensus that created the modern White House press corps. One small but highly symbolic part of the consensus was the Correspondents dinner, and this is why it matters that the New York Times has quit the event." [...]
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  Posted: May 01, 2007, 2:11am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• News, Improved: Learning to Change. From a New Book by Michele McLellan and Tim Porter

  Tim Porter (of First Draft) and Michele McLellan (ex-Oregonian) have been on a tour of American newsrooms, daily newspaper division. Now they are back with "change or die" findings. It's the people who have to change, they say in an excerpt from their new book. And guess what? It's happening. [...]
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  Posted: March 29, 2007, 9:49am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Participate in Politics by Covering the Campaign: NewAssignment.Net and Huffington Post Team Up

  More eyes and ears, more voices, and more people with more sources of information, more experts with more specialties, more writers on more beats, some of them quite offbeat... [...]
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  Posted: March 27, 2007, 3:09am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Assignment Zero, Day Six: Help Wanted Section

  I'm looking for amateur-friendly pros who can work with the people who have joined up with us. Five days ago we launched AZ. We now have 450 contributors--each with a profile and a blog--slowly filtering into the site. What do we do now? they're asking. That's where you come [...]
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  Posted: March 19, 2007, 8:06am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• Assignment Zero: Trend Reporting Gone Pro-Am

  NewAssignment.Net just launched its first reporting project, a partnership with Wired.com and Newsvine. It's called Assignment Zero. Here's the deal, and the links. Let me know what you think. [...]
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  Posted: March 15, 2007, 12:48am EDT
  by Jay Rosen

• They're Not in Your Club but They Are in Your League: Firedoglake at the Libby Trial

  "What happens? One blog puts more boots on the ground than any commercial news operation. The writers bring more background, savvy and commitment to the case. And they dominate in coverage of a big news event. Journalists themselves use it to keep up and get their bearings." [...]
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  Posted: March 09, 2007, 1:39pm EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Grave and Deteriorating for the Children of Agnew

  "The choices resemble what the go-getters from Enron faced: confront the bad accounting or adopt even more desperate measures to conceal losses. But if the AP had fabricated a source and relied on that source 60 times, maybe the tables could be turned again and the day of reckoning put [...]
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  Posted: January 09, 2007, 1:33am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Check out Placeblogger.com. It's About All Those Hyperlocal News Sites Springing Up...

  Lisa Wiliams--the ace local news blogger from Watertown, MA, an occasional PressThink contributor and one of the sharpest people I know about all things Net--has launched a new site, Placeblogger.com, which lets you "discover, browse, and subscribe to local blogs," over 700 of them. [...]
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  Posted: January 01, 2007, 10:15am EST
  by Jay Rosen

• Retreat from Empiricism: On Ron Suskind's Scoop

  "Realist, a classic term in foreign policy debates, and reality-based, which is not a classic term but more of an instant classic, are different ideas. We shouldn't fuzz them up. The press is capable of doing that--fuzzing things up--because it never came to terms with what Suskind reported in 2004." [...]
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  Posted: December 18, 2006, 10:40pm EST
  by Jay Rosen