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"Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge," CJR's collection of
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Cover Story January/February 2001
A Wild Ride Into History *THE CAMPAIGN* • SCRIPTED Russ Baker: When the campaign is controlled, what can journalists do? • MARGIN OF ERROR Andy Kohut: Voter attitudes on polls, journalists, and the campaign. • TRYING TO SCALE THE 'IMPENETRABLE WALL' Lonnie Isabel: When candidates seal themselves off. • THE DEBATES Joshua Micah Marshall: Why they failed. • THE DUI Brent Cunningham: How we missed it. *ELECTION NIGHT* • THE BIG MISTAKE Neil Hickey: Where the election night projections went wrong. • THAT LONG NIGHT Four journalists from different media describe their own election night experiences. *FLORIDA FRENZY* • CABLE RISING Jane Hall: The long count boosted the three all-news cable networks. • BAD BALLOTS Stephen J. Simurda: What did the media know about voting technology, and when did they know it? • THE COMPETITION James Harper: Newspapers compete over coverage of the ballot battle in South Florida. • FINAL ACT Neil Hickey: The last hours of Al Gore. REFLECTIONS • KLEIN & COLLINS Two top political writers look back on the campaign year. • THE 'SYSTEM WORKS' MYTH Christopher Hanson: Post-election coverage slanted Bush's way. • CHARACTER VS. POLICY Evan Cornog: History's view of media performance. Articles: CHICAGO TV EXPERIMENT Carol Marin's no-nonsense local news program didn't make it. By Neil Hickey LIFTING THE VEIL: REPORTING ABOUT THE LESS FORTUNATE Three newspapers are energetically attempting to cover the unseen poor. By Trudy Lieberman LIFTING THE VEIL: VOICES FROM PRISON Joe Richman wanted to go to jail. A pathbreaking NPR special resulted. By Lauren Janis Departments: CURRENTS DARTS & LAURELS Voices: LAWRENCE K. GROSSMAN Investigations: Contaminating an election JUDITH LEVINE Copyright: Cybercops on the move JOEL SIMON Rules of War: When the press is a target GENEVA OVERHOLSER Newspapers: Washington news council Book Reviews: Joe Dimaggio: The Hero's Life By Richard Ben Kramer Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom By Bob Woodward Reviewed by Steve Weinberg Drudge Manifesto By Matt Drudge Reviewed by Tom Goldstein The Day Paper By Gregory N. Stone Reviewed by Matthew Schuerman James Boylan's BOOK REPORTS
Web Special
Congress has held hearings on the television networks' election night performance -- which Representative Billy Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana, has termed "clearly flawed." Prior to the hearings, some networks commissioned studies exploring the reasons for their errors in vote projections. Here are two of them: CBS and CNN. (You will need Adobe Acrobat to read these reports.)
New in WHO OWNS WHAT
It's a multimedia monster. In the largest corporate merger in U.S. history, America Online acquired Time Warner to create the world's largest media company. Click here to see a complete listing of AOL Time Warner's holdings and those of some forty other media companies.
REWIND
With the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill back on the table, CJR reintroduces our 1999 resource guide on covering money and politics. Reporters gearing up to cover and explain the battle for reform should find the report, by Peter Overby of NPR, a useful aid. Also, those interested in campaign contributions from media companies may want to revisit our September/October 2000 article by Charles Lewis on how media money influences media policy.
Covering Criminal Justice
Reporting on criminal justice requires persistence and perspective. The crime beat contains innumerable obstacles and complex legal and ethical issues for a journalist. This Resource Guide, presented by the Center on Crime, Communities & Culture and the Columbia Journalism Review, provides the most reliable resources to assist the criminal justice reporter.
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