Earlier this month Commentary published its 75th anniversary issue. It contains a long dialogue (Editing Commentary – A Conversation) between John Podhoretz the magazine’s current editor and his father Norman a previous editor. The conversation, nine pages of it, is a largely congratulatory depiction of how heavily edited is the copy published. John describes an…
We’ve decided to keep Guardian journalism free for all readers… This declaration is from the online Guardian. Is the paper giving up on journalism? They seem to be saying so. They’re keeping the Guardian journalism free – ie, free of journalism, as in germ free. This confession confirms a suspicion that I’ve wondered about ever…
It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. Yogi Berra The great Yogi’s admonition not withstanding, people seem confident of their ability to foretell the future. The futurist du jour is a teenage girl who foretells the imminent end of the world. Perhaps she’s right. Nevertheless, despite thousands of years of doom’s just around…
Over the past 100 years or so the sports desk has replaced the classical music beat as the depository for journalism’s weakest writers. The following sentence shows why. It’s from an article by Johnette Howard writing for ESPN. It occurs towards the end of the article about the Ryan Lochte debacle. The context doesn’t mean…
A medical journal is supposed to be an unbiased and objective source of the latest and best medical information. Of course, since all journals (for now) are run by human beings the reality and the ideal are widely separated. Even so, you shouldn’t be able to tell the politics of the journal’s editor from its content….
For the record, the 49ers won 27-20.
The Wall Street Journal today published Students Stumble Again on the Basics of History. In it they present the familiar lament that many American students are deficient in the basics of American history. The following picture was used to illustrate how little our students know about the Declaration of Independence. All is not lost, however,…
The writer Joseph Epstein has written a short essay on why he has canceled his subscription to The New York Times. I’m surprised it took him this long. Maybe it’s because he’s from Chicago and didn’t grow up reading the paper. I’m from Brooklyn and can remember when the paper was at the acme of…
Man injured when run over by car Lubbock Avalanche-Journal Wednesday, August 12, 2009
In a world beset with event both catastrophic and tumultuous, momentous and turbulent the less than mundane should be far in the background. So what’s the main story in our local newspaper? This is: Does Obama’s puppy qualify as a rescued dog? Okay human interest and all the rest. But a thousand words on this…