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Title: Is the Pot Calling the Kettle Black?
Review: James Fallows certainly deserves credit for writing an interesting and clearly presentedargument for media reform. However, Fallows' tenure at U.S. News has thus far failed to deliver any of the reforms he touts in his book. A recent study I did of U.S. News articles for 1997 shows that most articles regarding American politics still follow the "Game" schema. That is, the focus is on who's winning and who's losing rather than what the issues are. To be sure, Fallows has brought a bit more coverage of the issues themselves, and more significant change may take time. Still, Fallows is quick to criticize journalists turned television pundits in his book. Yet Gloria Borger, a U.S. News columnist, points out at the end of each and every column she writes that she is also a CBS political analyst (read: pundit). Fallows has some good ideas, but as he is learning first hand, when trying to put theory into practice, things sometimes get lost in the translation.
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