The Bush administration was pathological about secrecy. Here’s what needs to be undone after eight dark years—and why it won’t be easy.

Political blog network shutters all but two sites

Hendler picks his top stories from 2008

Today The Uptake, a Minnesota based cit-jo initiative, is offering a multimedia powerhouse live from the state canvassing board meeting. It’s a great way to watch the most recent step in the prolonged post-election that the once conventional Al Franken-Norm Coleman Senate battle has become. At the top of the page, the Uptake is streaming […]

There are times when being a foreign correspondent is anything but the childhood dream that lured many a dime store hero into newspapering. It’s dangerous and unrelenting to work in countries where the press is under fire, only to see your dispatches shoveled deep inside the paper, cut, or spiked. But then there are times […]

Americans could be forgiven for being a little preoccupied. After all, in the last several weeks, we’ve had a presidential transition, an economy in death spiral, and a state government meltdown. Oh, and Oprah’s put on some weight. But let’s just admit it–even without all that, we’d still probably be ignoring what’s going on in […]

On Tuesday morning, Chicago’s reporters had no idea what sort of day they’d be facing. Not surprisingly, some were caught unprepared when Blagojevich was arrested, and their state thrown into turmoil. So the below video of radio-man Ben Calhoun, a WBEZ reporter, borrowing a tie from a business staffer is downright adorable. You can’t go […]

Liz’s list of Time‘s lists sent me down a rabbit hole of empty, soulless, clicks. Of course that’s the point–each item on the list gets its own page, so if you read ten top ten lists, you’ve just gifted Time Inc. 100 pageviews. Ka-ching! Still, Time was wise enough to recognize Bill Clinton’s WHYY radio […]

CJR’s roadmap to the Blagojevich complaint

Wow. See if you can make it more than halfway through this excellent piece from the New York Observer‘s John Koblin on the hall of mirrors reporting, rumor-mongering, excuse-making, word-parsing disaster that is the “Will Clinton be our Next-etary of State” journalistic free for all without your mouth hanging agape. No pull quote. Just read […]