PSoTD

When the reporter goes from reporting the story to being part of the story - to the point where he may be called to testify - should he stay on the post of reporting the story? What should Slate do in this particular case?

It's still newsworthy.

Should Congress try to stop President Bush from deploying more U.S. troops in Iraq?

* 40651 responses

Yes 80%

No 16%

Not sure 4%

It's time for newspapers to grow up.

Although President Bush's annual State of the Union address touched on a host of topics, most of us listening were focused solely on what he had to say about the Iraq war.

Essentially, he asked the nation to give his unpopular plan to send more troops to Iraq a chance to work. He's imploring the nation to take a leap in faith that the new strategy will work.

We haven't a clue as to whether the new strategy will make any difference.

We hope it does. But we doubt it.

It sounds plausible that the war on terror has kept the battle over there and the U.S. is more prepared to thwart terrorism than it was on Sept. 11, 2001.

We sure hope so. But it's hard to take national security for granted, or measure accomplishments when events can suddenly alter that perceived success.

While the president's critics keep calling for a new direction, they stop short of offering any real solutions.

Where's Superman when we need him?

There are problems in which there is nothing we can do that can provide the solution. The policeman can't cure cancer. The doctor can't prevent murder. Apparently, we couldn't stop our government from pursuing a horrible policy in Iraq. And, unfortunately, it appears the news media can't consider whether it is reasonable to think that America can prevent civil war from happening in another country.

Yes, it is horrible that America has released all these things into motion in Iraq. But at some point we have to consider what we're doing as damage control, as opposed to solving the problem. We cannot solve this. And the kind of thinking that America can somehow control another country - and its people - is exactly how we got into this mess in the first place.

A nation needs to know its limitations.

How does one determine the educational history of writers of any particular publication, such as The Washington Post? You can get the editor information from the website:

Leonard Downie, Jr. - BA and MA degrees in journalism and political science from Ohio State University. He received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Ohio State in June 1993.

Philip Bennett - degree in history from Harvard College.

Milton Coleman - bachelor of fine arts degree in music history and literature from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which in 1998 named him as a Distinguished Alumnus. In 1971, he was a Southern Education Foundation Fellow, and in 1974 a fellow in the Michele Clark Summer Program for Minority Journalists at the Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University.

But I can't even find bio information at their web site on Fred Hiatt, Colbert I. King, or Jackson Diehl, let alone the rest of the writers on staff.

In honor of Freedom of the Campus Press Day I post this, because wouldn't it be useful to students considering a career in journalism to know what today's journalistic stars studied, and where they went to school? The journalists of tomorrow may want to know what educational path is currently successful.

And so might consumers.

Dear Newsweek,

I saw this movie, and remember the performance of Darren Harris, so I really don't need to read about Howard Fineman's high school experiences.

Dear News Media,

Quit calling Bush Administration possible changes in policies, such as this, as "change of heart". This implies that there was an acceptable, emotional reason for Bush's prior thinking. It may have very well have been emotional, but it wasn't acceptable. We're suffering through the same process with his Iraq-related decisionmaking.

Call it what it is: incredibly slow learning. Or maybe Profiles in Ignorance. It's time for the news media to start applying standardized testing for those who govern America. America can't afford such poor results in politicians from its information society. The news media needs its own informal "Leave No Politician Behind" program to measure how quickly politicians understand realities which will force policy regardless of any emotional attachment to the contrary.

Thank you, Iwao Takamoto, for spending your time creating a cartoon character that children loved. RIP.

A slog of institutional egos.

Digby has a post up about Newsweek Magazine's "witty" little CW piece they run every week. I think there's a comparative equation for what Newsweek does:

Newsweek's CW is to quality political analysis as One Day at a Time was to quality television comedy in 1983. They are both about equally entertaining and illuminating.

Sidenote: ODaaT was cancelled the following year.

The city I was born in... why oh why did you agree to have celebrities" train as reserve officers with the Muncie, Ind., police force on the Armed and Famous show?

Anderson is laughing at you... Couldn't the producers at least have brought back the acting crew of the "Police Academy" movie series for this show?

So how long until the grocery store gossip papers start with the "Saddam seen" in Argentina or Alabama stories?