Month: December 2012
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New at CJR: Beware Green Lantern thinking on guns
My new column at CJR warns the media to avoid Green Lantern-style thinking in covering and commenting on President Obama’s response to the shootings in Newtown. Here’s how it begins: In a riff inspired by the blogger Matthew Yglesias a few years ago, I proposed what I called the Green Lantern theory of the presidency
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New at CJR: Addressing the asymmetry question
My new CJR column considers the argument that the pressure for partisan balance in factchecking made 2012 campaign coverage worse. Here’s how it begins: Factchecking made great strides during the 2012 campaign, but were those advances compromised by the pressure to maintain partisan balance? Two respected Washington think tank scholars say yes. Thomas Mann of
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New at CJR: The need for better “fiscal cliff” reporting
My new column at CJR contrasts the questionable value-add for horse race journalism with the “fiscal cliff” negotiations, where good insider reporting is desperately needed. Here’s how it begins: We’ve just finished an election in which quantitative analysis provided far more accurate predictions than pundits and reporters, who frequently offered claims and analysis that were