In your soggy Thursday media column: hurricane coverage rules the universe, commenters can sometimes write, John Podhoretz discusses cocks, the NYT op-ed section is not working class, and Jack Shafer says goodbye.
Yesterday, the already-shrunken world of media reporting lost its two grandest figures: Jim Romenesko, the quiet man who singlehandedly set the agenda, like a front page editor for all media news (semi-retiring, by choice); and Slate's Jack Shafer—America's most consistently fearless press critic (laid off). Step…
Bogus drug scares are a mainstay of mainstream media reporting and reactionary parenting. A roundup of the latest in ludicrous drug trends—and look back at how bogus substances have stirred panic for more than a century now—below.
In your fading Friday media column: America's most august lefty magazine learns how to makes Ca$h the Ebay way, Ivy League murder obsession explained, Suze Orman may wake you up soon, and some assholes still love Tom Friedman.
In your buttermilk-battered Wednesday media column: the NYT cafeteria gets a sterling review, Jack Shafer is a night-wandering insomniac, Graydon Carter blackballs restaurateurs, and citizen journalism pays off (for somebody), and Hearst rents a fresh bachelor pad.
In your leaky Wednesday media column: A DC editor accidentally forwards an email convo with a reporter about Blackwater, which we reproduce for you in full; layoffs come to Newhouse; the WSJ ends embargoes; and Jack Shafer abhors The Butt.
So you know how the newspaper industry has long been whining incessantly about the internet killing journalism? Well, this isn't the first time they've made such claims! They went nuts during the 1920s and 1930s over the threat from radio.
Jack Shafer has had it with the weepy emails about how you lost Little Timmy forever to some overdose. He's a busy man. Save it for Cary Tennis. [via Nick Douglas]
Did you wonder who your favorite Slate contributor is voting for? Good news: now you know! Michael Kinsley instituted the quadrennial endorsement list in 2000—go back and read how wrong all the Bush people were!—and it's been a beloved feature ever since, the two more times they've done it, because everyone cares how…
Jack Shafer: "I'm at a two-day Slate retreat at the Mohonk Mountain House playing team-building "trust games" with Mickey Kaus, Julia Turner, Nathan Heller, and a handgun. I'm kidding about the trust games, but I'm serious about being stuck in the soul-bleaching bath that is a retreat." Shudder.
"It's with great shame that I confess that Slate is a nominee" in the Webby Awards, says Jack Shafer, the site's lead destroyer of all fun. He's upset that so many people get to come home with a trophy: 600 winners and over 1100 pre-announced "honorees," out of almost 10,000 contestants who paid $275 or more each to…
Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman should learn rule number 63 or web publishing: by deleting a blog post, one only draws greater attention to it. On Friday, the Conde Nast magazine's media industry terrier, Jeff Bercovici, wrote a typically niggling piece for Portfolio's website about best-selling fabulist, Malcolm…
Remember when I freaked out that Malcolm Gladwell, the most successful pop-non-fiction writer of our time, was bragging about pulling pranks at the Washington Post? And remember how I was further irked that Gladwell was lying about lying? And remember how Pareene was like seriously, Rebecca, this is tired? Actually,…
The New York Times is forever trying to identify and co-opt (bogus) cultural trends, from metrosexuals to bed bugs to Argentinian cocaine. And now, oddly and odiously placed in the Sunday Styles section, they discuss "Drunkorexia," a combination of eating disorders and problem drinking. But don't worry, they don't…
Fark overlord Drew Curtis's book pulls an extremely tardy rave from Slate's Jack Shafer. (It came out at the end of May.) "This column is not a pathetic attempt to get my story posted on Fark.com and reap the thousands of hits that naturally follow," promises Shafer. [Slate]
This Slate slideshow about the way News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch is portrayed in film and television is notable mainly for demonstrating that Slate columnist Jack Shafer has a voice for print. [Slate]
Slate's media scold Jack Shafer gets to abuse newspapers today by writing about a new study that found that fewer than 2% of stories with errors got corrected in a group of ten metro daily newspapers. This is where we jump up and down and yell "One of us, one of us!" Can we put the bogeyman of how those stupid blogs…
Jack Shafer on Times Digest: "The shorter New York Times, set in the same fonts as the newspaper, is the perfect brief news read, provided you're 1) not near a computer and can't download the Times Reader; 2) unable to get the regular Times; 3) extraordinarily pressed for time; or 4) in a mood to make only one hand…
Slightly quiet on the "Rupert Murdoch craves Dow Jones" front. Still, today we learn that editors at the Wall Street Journal knew of the bid at least a week before it came out, but said nothing, and were thus beaten to the story by CNBC. The decision to sit on the story, says the Times "raises a nettlesome issue for…
