"The Iowa Caucuses are presented as a news event, a mini-election with an informational outcome, a winner. But what they really are is a ritual, the gathering of a tribe, which affirms itself and its place in our political system by staging this thing every four years."
You can get mad at your friends, right? I mean... that's allowed. I am mad at my friends at Politifact because I believe in what they are doing, I think it's important work, I've even helped them do it in a couple of small ways, and now they've gone and made it impossible for me to defend them when they're getting slammed.
My version of a year end review. These are the highlights from my writing and posting life this year. They are in chronological order: earliest to latest. I have included Facebook likes as a rough proxy for reader interest
"Being a livestream he acts as 'eyes and ears' for the viewers. Literally. People will tell him to move the camera somewhere and he'll do it. They'll ask for interviews with someone, and Tim will go over and do so... The viewers will ask him questions and he won't rest until he gets them their answers."
What if journalists sense that their work never reaches the voters whose inattentiveness is being exploited? What if they somehow know that voters are getting screwed but they've lost faith in their ability to do anything about it?
PRESSTHINK is a project of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. It is written and edited by professor Jay Rosen, who has taught at NYU since 1986. The blog is about the fate of the press in a digital era and the challenges involved in rethinking what journalism is today. It presents essays, press criticism, interviews and speeches. PressThink does not accept advertising.