"I can’t imagine a nonfiction writer who wasn’t influenced by the fiction he or she had read. But the “thriller-like pacing” you find in my writing may come more from my own beat than from thrillers. I walk fast and am impatient. I get bored easily—no less with my own ideas than with those of others. Writing for me is a process of constantly throwing out stuff that doesn’t seem interesting enough. I grew up in a family of big interrupters." Janet Malcolm interviewed by Katie Roiphe in The Paris Review.
posted by escabeche on Jul 25, 2011 - 6 comments

Gawker's John Cook yesterday published an exclusive report on a trove of documents from the Nixon Presidential Library tracing the development of Fox News to a 1970 internal memo annotated by then-consultant Roger Ailes. Part of a 318-page cache of similar documents, the memo -- "A Plan For Putting the GOP on TV News" -- called for the creation of a strongly pro-Nixon news outlet operated from the White House which would disseminate partisan news packages free of charge to local affiliates across the country. By coordinating release of these targeted reports with allied politicians and duping opponents into hostile interviews, Ailes hoped to bypass the "prejudices of network news" -- a desire which led him to advocate for some unexpected political policies at the time, from campaign finance reform to anti-poverty efforts. The report comes as Fox is waging an aggressive two-front PR war with perceived ideological enemies -- calling on viewers to file IRS complaints against Media Matters' tax-exempt status for their dogged fact-checking of the network, while on-air hosts launched a campaign to label Jon Stewart "racist" after he called out their record of falsehoods following a critical interview with Chris Wallace (previously).
posted by Rhaomi on Jul 1, 2011 - 92 comments

Johann Hari, British columnist for The Independent and The Huffington Post (recently on mefi), has this week been caught in a storm of controversy concerning his apparent plagiarism of interview quotes. [more inside]
posted by ArmyOfKittens on Jun 29, 2011 - 91 comments

Obama On OBL: The Full "60 Minutes" Interview (transcript)
posted by Blazecock Pileon on May 9, 2011 - 158 comments

"My cancers are so bad that I think I've arrived at the end of the road. What a pity. I would like to live not only because I love life so much, but because I'd like to see the result of the trial. I do think I will be found guilty." -Oriana Fallaci
posted by felix betachat on Sep 15, 2006 - 47 comments

Ask Putin. At 15.00 GMT today, Vladimir Putin will answer questions posed by the public live online. Two Russian journalists and one from the BBC will select the questions, you can submit yours here. Accountability or Publicity on the part of Putin?
posted by Markb on Mar 6, 2001 - 1 comment