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opinion

By Ryan Holiday 8/29/12 2:20pm

opinion

OFFTHEMEDIA

Forget Lehrer and Zakaria—Most Online Journalism Is Rotten to the Core

The state of journalism is bad. Of course, Jonah Lehrer and Fareed Zakaria—high-profile writers at The New Yorker and Time, respectively—were recently exposed as frauds and plagiarists, but that’s not the worst of it. Not even close. The phone-tapping scandal that nearly imploded NewsCorp’s news division last year? Nope.

In fact, nothing illustrates the distressing state of affairs more clearly than the reaction to Judge William Alsup’s recent order that Google and Oracle turn over the names of the reporters and bloggers whom the two companies had paid for potentially positive coverage supporting their case in a high-stakes copyright lawsuit.

Wait, what reaction? Oh, you didn’t even hear about this? Read More

By The Editors 8/22/12 10:49am

opinion

High-Tech Ballot Access

If you’ve been following the presidential campaign at all, you know that ballot access is emerging as one of the season’s biggest issues, at least among political players and operatives. Nobody will actually cast a vote in November based on a candidate’s position on ballot access, but the issue may well decide the election itself, as accessibility is being contested in several battleground states. Read More

By The Editors 8/22/12 10:46am

opinion

Car Talk

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has a novel idea to help settle not just a dispute over livery service outside of Manhattan, but a sudden chasm in the city’s budget. Mr. Stringer suggests that the parties involved put their heads together and devise a solution acceptable to everyone.

Right now, that’s the best course of action. Read More

By The Editors 8/22/12 10:42am

opinion

Tenure Reform Works

At a time when the city’s jobless rate remains higher, at 10 percent, than the national average, every additional pink slip represents a setback in the long, tortured road to recovery.

That said, taxpayers, parents and students should be delighted to hear that the city is serious about getting rid of ineffective teachers. The Department of Education recently announced that nearly half the teachers who were eligible to receive tenure this year were denied the lifetime appointment. That’s a milestone achievement for a process that used to be treated as a fait accompli by teachers and administrators alike. Read More

By Sarah Wildman 6:52pm

opinion

Sikhs in New Delhi protest US shooting. (Getty)

Obama and Romney Play Duck-and-Cover Over Bigotry, While Christie Takes a Stand

One day in mid-July, President Obama addressed the nation—“not so much as a president” but “as a father and as a husband.” It was, he said, the “darkest of days”: the aftermath of the horrific slaughter of moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado. It was the right speech at the right moment, the right way to address the unaddressable. Mitt Romney, too, spoke of his sincere sorrow for the loss of life—similarly speaking “as a father and a grandfather, a husband, and an American.”

Neither man campaigned that day.

But two weeks later, when another lunatic shooter opened fire on another group of husbands and wives and fathers and sons and mothers and grandparents? The campaigns didn’t skip a beat. Neither candidate appeared on the scene. Read More

By The Editors 8/15/12 12:24pm

opinion

Silence on Gun Violence

Another week, another horrific case of gun violence, another opportunity for the presidential candidates to tell us what they plan to do about controlling the flow of weapons in this country.

Don’t bet on it. Read More

By The Editors 8/15/12 12:23pm

opinion

More Antics in Albany

Not long ago, state legislators swore off their addiction to idiotic pork-barrel spending. Never again, they said, would they purchase their re-elections by raiding the public treasury for pet projects in their home districts. At the time, this was considered nothing less than a revolution in Albany. At long last, sanity had broken out in the capital.

Or so we thought. Silly of us, really. Read More

By The Editors 8/15/12 12:17pm

opinion

Ryan’s Hope

Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate is, at one level, a huge gamble. Congressman Ryan is a divisive figure in American politics, demonized as a knuckle-dragging fiscal Neanderthal who would be happy to throw granny out on the street and drag the poor back to the workhouse. Democrats will be more Read More

By Mike Edison 8/14/12 12:55pm

opinion

Helen Gurley Brown in 2001 (Getty).

Screw’s Former Editor-in-Chief—In Praise of Helen Gurley Brown

As a single man, I live for the single girl.

With the passing of Helen Gurley Brown, the original Cosmo girl, the old debates about her retro-progressive, sex-positive brand of feminism will be rekindled. And even as she is lauded as a catalyst for a spectacular wave of newfound sexual empowerment among a gender that was often brow-beaten and moralized into frigid submission, she may well perpetually be reviled by the old-school feminist cadres whose humorlessness almost ruined feminism for the rest of us. Read More

By The Editors 8/08/12 12:35pm

opinion

Goldman’s Social Impact

Goldman Sachs has become, in certain circles, a punching bag for demagogues and panderers who would have you believe that the firm somehow symbolizes all that critics dislike about global capitalism in general and Wall Street in particular.

Goldman deserves better, but that’s another argument for another time. For now, it is important to note the firm now has a financial stake in reforming New York’s criminal justice system. It’s the sort of public-private policy initiative that ought to be encouraged at all levels of government, particularly as states and municipalities continue to struggle with budget deficits. Read More