Matthew Gentzkow, Edward L. Glaeser, and Claudia Goldin (NBER): The Rise of the Fourth Estate: How Newspapers Became Informative and Why It Mattered. In the early 1900s Walter Lippman laid the groundrules for public debate in America — have the US media followed his prescriptions? A review of Liberty and the News by Walter Lippmann. A review of The Granta Book of Reportage: Classics of Reportage. From CJR, a case study on the fight for clarity in language: "surge" meet "escalation". More on Turning Back the Clock: Hot Wars and Media Populism by Umberto Eco. From the Center for Media and Democracy, here are the 2007 Falsies Awards. From The Weekly Standard, an article on media gatekeepers as the new fundamentalists. Is Andy Rooney a brilliant satirist or batshit looney? Time columnists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer are on their way out the door. Did you know that Time actually stands for The International Magazine of Events? What's new at The New York Review of Books: News on a successor? Not really, but there are some changes afoot at the intellectual journal. How many magazines debuted this year? The Numbers Guy investigates.
