Category Archives: Journalism

Doc Searls Weblog→ In fewest words, yes.

2025-07-26 Here is my answer to the question Does SiriusXM know what station you are listening to? The SiriusXM streaming app logs what you listen to, when, and how you interact with programs and channels across your devices (phone, pad, smart speaker, website th …›

BuzzMachine→ Whither Colbert? Whither democracy

2025-07-18 Like every sane American, I am outraged that CBS/Paramount/Ellison Inc. canceled — in the true meaning of the word — Stephen Colbert, capitulating to Trump in the rapid Orbanization of American media. Here I propose what I hope come …›

Nieman Lab→ What went wrong at the Houston Landing?

2025-07-17 In May, the Houston Landing shut down less than two years after its ambitious launch, laying off all 43 employees. The announcement that the board of directors had voted to close the nonprofit news outlet generated national attention, and many question …›

BuzzMachine→ The Times’ Mamdani vendetta

2025-07-04 The Times has it out for Zohran Mamdani. The record is clear. It is time to examine receipts.  The latest attack on him is journalistically unconscionable, and so is the editors’ reaction to legitimate criticism. In a story played by its …›

PressThink→ Some personal news

2025-06-10 As we say on the internet, “some personal news.” After 39 years on the job I am retiring as an NYU professor. In this post I will take a few moments to reflect on my academic career. Spoiler alert: I am not leaving the field, or the fight f …›

BuzzMachine→ Here we go again

2025-02-06 In an endless game of lobbyists’ Whac-A-Mole, it’s a new year and here is new legislation trying to save the news. Except it’s not new. First, from Oregon, comes a rehash of bad legislation written by newspaper hedge-fund lobbyists, v …›

BuzzMachine→ The whole world is whining

2025-01-21 For 25 years now, the Edelman PR company has issued its Trust Barometer. This year, it’s all about grievances. It’s Festivus every day, the world around. Six in 10 people in the survey “hold grievances against business, government, and th …›

BuzzMachine→ It’s the racism, stupid

2024-11-09 Every current and common explanation for the reelection of Donald Trump — whether inflation or immigration, culture wars or campaign tactics, blaming Harris or Biden or the party — elides its true and root cause: racism.  The U …›

BuzzMachine→ How Fucked Are We? Very.

2024-11-06 Nevermind every other theory or tactical complaint about what happened in this election. Kamala Harris did everything she possibly could to win. The fault is not hers.  The fault is in our nation. We must come to the realization that Ameri …›

BuzzMachine→ The technology addiction trope

2024-10-17 Rupert Murdoch’s media have been a key source of moral panic about the internet and technology — see, for example, this from his Times declaring that phones are “dope” that imprison us all in an epidemic of addiction causing cognitive …›

BuzzMachine→ How they have failed us

2024-09-19 It is as if the editorial department at The Washington Post woke up one morning asking, in headlines I will quote below, “What are we doing wrong?” I will start by trying to answer the question for them, The New York Times, CNN, and the res …›

BuzzMachine→ What’s become of The Times & Co.?

2024-09-11 As often as I am disappointed in and critical of them lately, I will not cancel my subscriptions to The New York Times or The Washington Post. They should be so lucky, for I will stay on their cases. I also wish to support the good reporting that stil …›

BuzzMachine→ The unprecedented grand coalition

2024-09-06 As Nicolle Wallace exclaimed on her show Friday, Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have all gathered together around a cause. That cause is democracy and its standard bearer is Kamala Harris. This is a mome …›

BuzzMachine→ How Murdoch makes a meme

2024-08-29 I’ve long said that Rupert Murdoch is the single most malign influence in English-speaking democracy. He executes his strategy in small ways that add up. Here is an example: how a trope is born across Murdoch’s worldwide empire. Here is the edi …›

BuzzMachine→ California’s Deal for News

2024-08-22 A deal has just been struck in California by Assembly member Buffy Wicks that averts what could have been, in my opinion, disastrous legislation written by lobbyists to benefit primarily incumbent, investor- and hedge-fund-controlled news media in …›

BuzzMachine→ Could a new day dawn at The Times?

2024-08-18 Since I’ve been constantly criticial of The Times and its coverage of the election, here is a thread from the socials in which I note a Sunday morning of positive coverage of Kamala Harris leading the paper online: Well knock me over with …›