CJR’s Campaign Desk

The Columbia Journalism Review goes real-time with The Campaign Desk, a weblog of critiques of campaign reporting.

I can’t figure out how to make the item links work, but there are good hard shots by Thomas Lang at Drudge and his followers (including, sadly Joe Lieberman) for distorting Clark’s HASC testimony (January 15 and 16) and at Chris Suellentrop for his failed Fox News parody. Lang is good at tracing “echo chamber” effects.

I agree with Dan Drezner that some of us do this stuff without foundation grants, but CJR seems to be doing a high-quality, professional job so far (i.e., they mostly agree with me, but manage to keep a greater emotional distance). At least it beats Howie Kurtz, who was supposed to be part of the solution and is instead part of the problem.

Personally, I’m happy to have all the help I can get. It’s only January, and keeping up with the lies told about one candidate is already virtually a full-time job. It’s gonna be a long year.

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com