Journalism

Imagine a typical map of the world. Then look at the image above, which represents how Americans in February 2007 saw the world based on the news they received. Each country is represented by the number of seconds U.S.-based news outlets spent on stories about other countries. The disproportionate coverage of the U.S. didn’t come [...]

The Minnesota chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the country’s largest organization of reporters and editors, has just released a statement in response to recent confrontations between local police and media-makers in the weeks prior to the Republican National Convention. Calling actions against a KSTP photographer and a trio of New York new-media artists “definite warning signs,” the SPJ states that efforts “to intimidate journalists never work. Such misplaced heavy-handedness only escalates tensions–something we don’t need as thousands of respected delegates fill the convention hall next week and thousand more citizens take to the streets to express themselves.”

When the merger of the Village Voice and New Times, a chain of alternative weeklies based in Arizona,  was announced in late 2005, it set off big changes at Voice-owned papers across the country. At the New York flagship itself, some of its best known names were let go, including political writer James Ridgeway and [...]