The press promised a lot when it came to Michelle Obama’s “reintroduction.” It failed to deliver.

Why isn’t the press doing this job?

Can the press force education onto the campaign agenda?

To what extent is reporting on an unsubstantiated rumor simply spreading that rumor? There have been, recently, insinuations circulating around the internet and cable news shows alleging video footage of Michelle Obama’s use of a derogatory term about white people. As Politico’s Ben Smith—and others—have reported, there is absolutely no evidence supporting the video’s existence. […]

With the apparent end, this Saturday, of Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency, the “was the media treatment of Clinton sexist?” question—already the subject of much discussion, as Liz pointed out last month—will (and, by the way, should) continue. And on last night’s Daily Show, “Senior Women’s Issues Commentator” Kristen Schaal put her own satirical […]

As the general election dawns, a few fewer -Gates, please!

Let’s celebrate today’s first draft

The Times parses Clinton’s Beer Factor

Just after 8 a.m. today, a crane doing construction work at a high-rise building on the corner of 91st Street and First Avenue, on New York City’s Upper East Side, snapped. Its top half—over 100 tons’ worth of steel—fell twenty stories down, tearing into the facade of the apartment building across the street, ripping into […]

“Pity the poor word ‘elite,’ which simply means ‘the best’ as an adjective and ‘the best of a group’ as a noun,” begins Susan Jacoby’s New York Times op-ed today. The piece goes on, perhaps unsurprisingly given both its lead and its author, to justify and celebrate the “elite”—not elitism, mind you (“an elitist is […]