Founded as St. Louis Journalism Review in 1970
Consumers are increasingly interested in learning about food preparation and production. Writing about food is an expanding area for journalists. Many “foodies” can satisfy their appetites to learn more through locally produced newspapers, magazines, online blogs and television segments. The Society of Professional Journalists, St. Louis chapter, recently brought together three area food writers to talk about trends in food news.
New York Times reporters did not mince words when they described how the Internal Revenue Service had, during the last two years “singled out dozens of Tea Party-inspired groups that had applied for IRS recognition” as nonprofits and therefore tax-exempt organizations for special scrutiny, including rounds of questioning about their political activities. The federal agency did not apply similar treatment to liberal groups and the big spenders on either side of the political fence. While President Obama denounced the IRS conduct as “outrageous,” an editorial in the Times May 14 described it as “the stumble by the IRS,” and so arrived at its very own moment of Clintonian linguistics. You remember the testimony about his platonic relationship with Monica Lewinsky when Bill Clinton said the hilarious line: “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
“We still don’t know the first thing about terrorists.” That was the title of last week’s column in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper now available in English and Hebrew on the Internet, by American-born (Los Angeles) and educated (UC Berkeley) Bradley Burston. I have not read or heard an American journalist or TV host make a similar comment, but I wish I had.
The Jan. 7 press release was short and to the point: “Alternative weekly publication The Other Paper will cease publication at the end of the month, the Dispatch Printing Company announced today. The last issue is set for distribution on Jan. 31.” People reacted to the news with anger but not a lot of surprise, according to Richard Ades, who worked at The Other Paper, a weekly alternative newspaper in Columbus, Ohio, for all of its 22 years – first as a theater critic, then as the arts editor from 2008 to 2013. “Most people who knew who we were and were familiar with the Dispatch were surprised that they kept us around that long,” he said.
In mid-January, the Iowa Supreme Court decided to maintain the distinction in Iowa state law between “media” and “non-media” defendants in defamation cases, with the latter easier to sue for some types of libel. In Bierman v. Weier, the court said the distinction is “a well-established component of Iowa’s defamation law.” The decision raises the question of whether bloggers would get the greater protection of media companies or the lesser protection of non-media defendants.