Founded as St. Louis Journalism Review in 1970
By George Salamon / There it was, as it usually is, the word that pops up in most stories about or related to the Holocaust: “banality.” This time it appeared in the headline and in its adjectival form in the text of an opinion piece in the Sunday Review Section of The New York Times on November 17: “The Banality of Robbing the Jews,” by Sarah Gensburger, a social scientist at France’s Center for Scientific Research.
BY GEORGE SALAMON / The debate between former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller and NSA revelations celebrated journalist Glenn Greenwald on the pages of the New York Times October 27th received much coverage, including on this site (“Can Greenwald be trusted with journalism’s future?” by William Freivogel on Nov. 1). The debate skidded to a highbrow conclusion when heavyweight-thinking journalist John Judis (Ph.D. in philosophy from UC Berkeley) contributed his thoughts in the pages of The New Republic, where the headline to his Nov. 6 piece proclaimed: “Glenn Greenwald and Bill Keller Are Wrong about Objectivity in Journalism.” Many commentators agreed that the either-or nature of the debate—Keller’s impartiality vs. Greenwald’s advocacy—did indeed render both positions “wrong,” or were at least based on assumptions easily rejected.
BY SCOTT LAMBERT / As the bullying allegations aimed at Miami Dolphins offensive lineman Richie Incognito continue, connections to the 1992 movie “A Few Good Men” become easier to make. In fact, it shouldn’t be long before Miami head coach Joe Philbin says to a group of reporters: “You can’t handle the truth!” In this case, it’s the media playing the role of the courtroom, and breaking stories every day seem to mirror the Incognito situation and the movie.
BY JEFF DANZIGER / The NSA joins forces with the spy who came in from the cold in the latest Danziger cartoon.
BY WILLIAM H. FREIVOGEL / Every journalist should read this week’s debate between Bill Keller, the former executive editor of The New York Times, and Glenn Greenwald, who has written stories in The Guardian based on Edward Snowden’s leaks about NSA surveillance. The debate is between Keller’s classical brand of impartial, let-the-reader decide journalism and Greenwald’s brand of advocacy journalism where the reporter transparently discloses his beliefs and asserts facts that support those beliefs.