More on CJR

Mark Mitchell

The New York Times today picked up on this blog item two weeks ago, in which I chided the CJR Daily's "Audit" section for a bizarre tantrum against the Wall Street Journal. It also mentioned criticism of Audit by BusinessWeeek Online and others.

The Times seemed a bit bemused by the whole thing, and was less than overwhelmed by the justification offered by the Audit's editor, Mark Mitchell. It didn't help, I think, that this guardian of journalistic standards initially posted comments anonymously, and was cranky and rambling. The Times observed that his "His point, though, was hard to discern, despite the fact that he wrote hundreds of words."

The article concludes by noting soothingly that "Audit does often offer cogent analysis in pursuing its basic theme: too much business journalism concentrates too heavily on market movements and relies on moneymaking tips in lieu of hard-hitting coverage."

Actually I disagree with the Times on this. It seems to me, as I've observed earlier, that the Audit has a real problem with hard-hitting coverage and has a naive view of both journalism and the business world.

UPDATE: I missed this.... thing in the Audit yesterday. Not awful by Audit standards, but after 1100 words making fun of journalists covering a conference in Idaho I was just kinda zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..... or maybe it was the heat. Audit could have taken its jab in half the length and, oh, just a wee bit more wit. But I guess that would be asking too much.

© 2006 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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