Mark Bowden tells us "The Story Behind the Story" in the October issue of The Atlantic: "With journalists being laid off in droves, ideologues have stepped forward to provide the “reporting” that feeds the 24-hour news cycle. The collapse of journalism means that the quest for information has been superseded by the quest for ammunition. A case-study of our post-journalistic age." [more inside]
posted by IvoShandor on Sep 22, 2009 - 62 comments

The Atlantic Monthly has helpfully indexed literary interviews from its archives. These include, among others, Alice Munro, Chinua Achebe, Dennis Lehane, Zadie Smith, Charles Simic, Salman Rushdie, Susan Sontag and John Irving.
posted by Kattullus on May 31, 2008 - 5 comments

Oscar Night In Hollywood "If we can huckster a President into the White House, why cannot we huckster the agonized Miss Joan Crawford or the hard and beautiful Miss Olivia de Havilland into possession of one of those golden statuettes which express the motion picture industry's frantic desire to kiss itself on the back of its neck?" The Atlantic reprints an indispensible Raymond Chandler article from 1948.
posted by Skot on Feb 22, 2008 - 11 comments

American Savagery. "Our role was to try to keep people motivated about [the] election and then to undermine the other side's support by casting them as liars, cheaters, stealers, immoral—all of that." The brutal chicanery of Karl Rove.
posted by four panels on Oct 18, 2004 - 25 comments

This month, in The Atlantic Monthly, Talking Points Memo's Joshua Micah Marshall writes an interesting article discussing the potential aspects of Kerry's foreign policy. The article itself is thought-provoking and erudite, and of equal if not more interest is the 3-part interview with Senator Joseph Biden (D) of Delaware, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Part One is here, with Parts Two and Three to be released later this week. Biden speaks about foreign policy in an overbearing, yet refreshingly intelligent, articulate, analytical manner.
posted by lazaruslong on Jul 5, 2004 - 3 comments

Historian H.W. Brands argues in this month's Atlantic that we over-venerate our Founding Fathers. John Adams and co., he surmises, were no wiser or more virtuous than our current crop of politicians, but their numerous flaws have been rendered invisible through the rosy glasses of time. What today's politicians could learn from their predecessors, he says, is bravado, the courage to take risks. Why not call a Constitutional Convention and rewrite the rules every so often?, he asks.
posted by grrarrgh00 on Aug 7, 2003 - 40 comments

The Million-Dollar Nose. Fascinating profile of wine critic Robert Parker (publisher of The Wine Advocate) by William Langewiesche of Atlantic Magazine.
posted by Wet Spot on Jun 2, 2003 - 9 comments

The Hunt for the Origin of AIDS "The notion that AIDS arose from a polio vaccine made with contaminated chimpanzee cells is far from the only theory about how the epidemic started, and it is hotly disputed. The quest for the source of the epidemic is intensifying, as researchers scour the jungle for clues and try to "walk back" the disease genetically with the help of the world's most powerful computers."
posted by the fire you left me on Dec 1, 2002 - 2 comments

Tales of the Tyrant is one of the best magazine articles I have read all year. A long, fascinating portrait of Saddam Hussein by the author of Black Hawk Down that has so many interesting/weird/awful details that it's too hard to excerpt just one.
posted by cell divide on May 6, 2002 - 6 comments

The nihilism of the new teenage criminal, as reported in this long, unsettling account in The Atlantic. Narcotized, unattached, deadened by imagery, "the goal for the bright ones is to truly mesmerize the middle class with violence." [via AL Daily.]
posted by argybarg on Feb 23, 2002 - 34 comments

Chain bookstores are the book lover's best friend. A compelling and detailed argument that the national bookstores are the best thing to happen to authors, publishers and readers in the last 20 years. Shamelessly lifted from Jorn.
posted by NortonDC on Jun 25, 2001 - 45 comments