Gateway Journalism Review

Media

Post-Dispatch column touches nerve in reader

A column written by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Bill McClellan touched a nerve in at least one reader, who wrote a letter to the editor that begins: “I was startled to read Bill McClellan’s column, ‘Crime Czar,’ in which he declared that the solution to a perceived crime epidemic was to ‘declare martial law and suspend the Constitution’ and to mandate ‘racial profiling,’ ‘frisking … young black men’ without cause. He also thought it a good idea to jail African-American women, bridging both racial and gender bigotry.”

Media

Election night viewing, GJR-style

True confession: Gateway Journalism Review’s staff is made up of political junkies with long traditions of monitoring election-evening results. Our own political media monitoring likely mirrors that of much of the American population. So, at the risk of being too introspective, here is how GJR staffers spent Tuesday evening.

Media

Election results show super PACs can’t buy Republican victories

As predicted, the much-maligned Citizens United Supreme Court decision helped unlock hundreds of millions of dollars in unlimited campaign spending in the 2012 election, much of it in support of former Michigan Gov. Mitt Romney and Republican Senate candidates. But contrary to expectations, the money almost entirely failed to elect candidates it supported.

Media

Editorial endorsement hits, misses

Despite the decline in the number of political endorsements made by Midwest newspapers, editorial editors still think the process is a civic duty. There is some disagreement, however, as to the influence of endorsements on voters.