That was my hometown paper growing up. It was, how shall I say, not on a par with the Cleveland Plain Dealer or the NYTimes.

or are the comments not staying fixed with respect to page number? The first couple times when I was on the last page hit re-load and had some comments moved back a page I thought I was mistaken, but now I have seen it a number of times in the last few hours. Using Firefox: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11

Gee, it sounds like you're one of those university profs who likes students to sign their evaluation forms, and dismisses anonymous evaluations. Know the type. If I can't get evaluations that only help my academic career, I shouldn't have to get them at all. Love it when the prof who heads the qualifying committee is also the one who wants you to sign your evaluation form. Best way to get Ph.D.s who know how to beg, grovel, and otherwise prostrate themselves before tenured power.

As for the people here being serious critics of journalism, I don't know how long you've been following the blog, but denigrating people for not being "serious critics" here is like jumping into a swamp with balloons tied to your arms and legs -- your butt becomes mired in muck, your head swims, and you have no way to thrash.

People here are massive consumers of information, and they don't like having journalists waste their time with junk news -- meta-reporting about the context of the news instead of the news itself, like horserace election coverage, emot-reporting, like tear jerker stories that masquerade as human interest, or celeb-reporting, like mindless stories about well known names just because they are well known. Of course, I'm not implying that anyone learns to write such crap at journalism schools, but then media, like all other corporations, increasingly don't care about professional integrity or product quality anymore, it distracts from gazing at the bottom line like vampires hypnotically drawn to a pulsing jugular.

But if you'd like to get into an intellectual discussion, try starting it off with a premise, instead of deprecating those to whom you are talking. It works better, and is widely perceived as less pompous.

You don't know Steven Landsburg do you? I know, he's from a different university and department. He's a tenured professor that sits on the board of a company that's indirectly helped offshore thousands of disk drive jobs, and writes columns in the NYT about how people are wrong to complain that their jobs have gone away. He thinks of himself as a practicing economist, has lots of nifty publications, probably dismisses people who aren't "serious critics" like you do. Don't you think his arguments lack a certain, I dunno, objectivity?

Cocktailhag, you're either Dorothy Parker or Nora Charles -- I can't decide which. Either way, I feel like the awestruck bellhop in the lobby when you sweep by. I really didn't think the Gods made such visions any more, but I'm very glad to be proven wrong.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to believe that Prof. Tim is not only not a journalist and not a journalism professor, but rather a guy who, to paraphrase an old joke, "plays one on the internet".

If I'm wrong, though, Prof. Tim, could you or would you please post a critique for us on the grammar and composition of John King's writing based on the email we have all read today on this blog? I assume that teaching writing skills are part of what a journalism professor shares with his or her students. In my unprofessional opinion John King's email to Glenn Greenwald appeared to be of very poor quality in that regard.

My post is a little confusing. I don't know whether the interview Glenn posted was edited from a longer interview. The point I intended to make was that King defended himself in part by claiming the interview Glenn criticized was not actually the entire interview. While Glenn stated at the beginning of his post that he reproduced the interview in its entirety as presented on "Situation Room," I don't see him directly addressing King's claim that there is more to the interview than what was shown on Situation Room.

Its a minor point, but I'm used to seeing Glenn completely eviscerating these guys, and I don't think he's quite gutted King, yet. So maybe my first post was more a reflection of my disappointment that Glenn didn't completely shut him down.

Page Problems:

Not just you.

Your last response raises some interesting questions. (and if we’re still tallying credentials, yeah I have my law degree, have practiced law, am now a physics prof, for however much that counts). My interpretation of Glenn’s position is that people like King are more than “simpering pretty faces;” they essentially get to set the boundaries of political discourse and have effective control over our (as in “we the people”) access to and ability to hold accountable, the political caste that takes us to war, materially affects our economic and natural environments, etc, etc. I mean, you’re the guy that’s been in the journalism field for a long time; do you disagree with Glenn or not? And to be honest, I really can’t tell from your comments so far where you stand on the central premise of this and the other posts Glenn has made in this area. The most substantive point I’ve been able to draw from your comments is that you don’t like members of your profession being treated the way Glenn’s treating King; a valid point I suppose, but then really beside the main point, eh?

Is it just me or are the comments not staying fixed with respect to page number?

I'm seeing similar. "next page" sometimes pulls up old pages, and comments seem to get renumbered. Perhaps someone's deleting comments and thus they get renumbered ... but there doesn't seem to be any less comments AFAICT. No big deal, though....

Cheers,