— A letter from Editor-in-Chief James Bennet about our magazine’s brand new design.
Fact-Checking the NRA Press Conference
“How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation’s refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?”
To our knowledge, no one — not even the NRA — has proposed a national database of the mentally ill. Since similar databases of sex offenders have done little to protect children from sex crimes, that seems unlikely to help. Also, few organizations have done more than the NRA to block the registration of anything, as they work vigorously to defeat gun registration databases wherever they find them.
Read more. [Image: AP]
How Conservative Media Lost to the MSM and Failed the Rank and File
It is easy to close oneself off inside a conservative echo chamber. And right-leaning outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh’s show are far more intellectually closed than CNN or public radio. If you’re a rank-and-file conservative, you’re probably ready to acknowledge that ideologically friendly media didn’t accurately inform you about Election 2012. Some pundits engaged in wishful thing; others feigned confidence in hopes that it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy; still others decided it was smart to keep telling right-leaning audiences what they wanted to hear.
But guess what?
You haven’t just been misinformed about the horse race. Since the very beginning of the election cycle, conservative media has been failing you. With a few exceptions, they haven’t tried to rigorously tell you the truth, or even to bring you intellectually honest opinion. What they’ve done instead helps to explain why the right failed to triumph in a very winnable election.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]
Why the Internet Is About to Replace TV as the Most Important Source of News
The headline conclusion of Pew’s latest monster survey of the media landscape was the demise of TV news. “There are now signs that television news is increasingly vulnerable,” the authors wrote, “as it may be losing its hold on the next generation of news consumers.”
But the larger story is the rise of the Web, which has surpassed newspapers and radio to become the second most popular source of news for Americans, after TV.
Read more. [Image: Pew]
GIFs + Sound = A Hilarious Video (and Probably Somebody’s Media Studies Thesis)
Born of the hive mind of Reddit and the editing skills of Reddit user Rasta_Pasta, this video combines the manic looping of GIFs with appropriately ridiculous audio clips. These creations are crowd-sourced from the subreddit devoted to the art form. On a meta level, it’s a brilliant exploration of the relationship between sound and picture in the fractured digital space of the Internet. On more basic level, it’s just funny. Some songs contain strong language.
— Ta-Nehisi Coates, on the context of magazines and their struggle to diversify. (via emilyjaneferber)
(via emilyjaneferber)
— Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster, on the Romney campaign’s dishonest welfare ad.
-
Why removing the queerness of Gatsby matters
In one of the film’s stupidest choices, Nick ends up in a sanitarium after Gatsby’s death. His pure...
-
an autobiography
-
Attention All Photography Enthusiasts
Voting for our annual photo contest ends today! Browse through 50 stunning finalists and pick your...
-
-
The loss of the Fung Wah bus service between Boston and New York inspired this parody: http://nyr.kr/XGaaWx
Lyrics and performance by Marc...
-
Cinemas.
-
In Nairobi Slum, Finding Safety In A Public Bathroom
by Julienne Gage“Step into Nairobi’s sprawling Kibera slum and it’s...
-
Here’s today’s Daily GIF!
