Month: June 2012
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New at CJR: The search for a post-decision narrative
I have a new column at CJR on commentators’ efforts to frame the Supreme Court’s ruling on health care reform as an important event in the narrative of the 2012 election. Here’s how it begins: Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision upholding most of the Affordable Care Act has vast implications for health policy in this country
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Thomas Friedman’s law of cliché recycling
It’s not Sunday without the comic stylings of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who drew a bizarre analogy yesterday between Moore’s law and the effect of social networking sites on political leadership: In 1965, Gordon Moore, the Intel co-founder, posited Moore’s Law, which stipulated that the processing power that could be placed on a
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New at CJR: The tautology of candidate “confidence”
I have a new column at CJR on how Mitt Romney has increasingly been portrayed as “confident” since his campaign chances have improved. Here’s how it begins: One of the most frequent problems with campaign reporting is the way that journalists construct candidate-centric narratives that coincide with the ups and downs of the race. We’ve
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New at CJR: Do campaign gaffes matter? Not to voters
I have a new column at CJR challenging claims that gaffes affect election outcomes and therefore deserve saturation coverage. Here’s how it begins: Since Friday, the national political conversation has been dominated by a debate over the importance of President Obama’s statement, at a White House press conference, that “The private sector is doing fine.”