First Draft by Tim Porter

Catching Up

I'm home for the weekend, but back on the road again next week. Here's some good reading I missed and maybe you did, too:

 Seattle Times wants its readers to blog the elections. (Thanks, Susan Mernit.)
Jay Rosen will be on of 35 credentialed bloggers reporting from the Democratic Convention.
Andrew Cline laments the dearth of understanding journalists have of rhetoric, a lack that results in he-said, she-said political coverage rather than the "movie production of campaign politics." CJR's Campaign Desk, on the same theme, proposes putting "A.O. Scott on the campaign trail and dispatch Adam Nagourney to Entertainment Weekly. Throw Roger Ebert on a campaign plane and assign Dan Balz to Disney. Order Andrew Sarris to Ohio and send Campaign Desk to the movies."
Tim Rutten labels 2004 as the "year of living dangerously" for the U.S. news media, warning of an acceleration of "journalism's slide back into partisanship." (Thanks, Kevin Roderick.)
 The Pew Internet & American Life Project releases a report that finds Americans increasingly turning to online media to view "graphic war images that were deemed too gruesome or horrific for newspapers and television to display ... but many who do venture outside the traditional and familiar standards of the mainstream news organizations to look at the images online end up feeling very uncomfortable." (Thanks, J.D. Lasica.)
 Campaign Desk adds a few more W's to the basics of journalism. No. 8: ""Why did I waste my time?"
 The New York Post got Kerrey's running mate wrong. You can buy a copy of Page 1 on eBay for five bucks. Truman-Dewey it's not. (Thanks, Sheila Lennon.)
 Jon Carroll laments the passing of "the old days of casual corruption and illicit favors" that constiuted the golden age of journalism." Hmmm. "Now we've cleaned up our act, and what do we get? Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass and Ann Coulter. You think maybe there's a connection?"