mark jurkowitz

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Tormenting Teddy

After 32 years in the US Senate, Ted Kennedy remains a force to be reckoned with, both for his legendary family history and his considerable accomplishments.
Republicans threaten Kennedy reign
By BOSTON PHOENIX STAFF | August 28, 2009

Rolled

Where’s the outrage over media mistreatment at the RNC?
By ADAM REILLY | October 01, 2008

Slime time

Nasty presidential races are nothing new.

We already know about politicians’ capacity for coarse behavior. But how low can the press go?

By ADAM REILLY | February 20, 2008

The ProJo's brave new world

The Providence Journal is turning to an unlikely source — high school football — for help.
Will going super-local on the Web strengthen the paper?
By IAN DONNIS | December 05, 2007

Fake-news vacuum

It’s easy to be flip about the deep implications of the Writers Guild of America strike, which is now stretching into its fourth week.

Why the Writers Guild strike could affect the presidential race

By ADAM REILLY | November 28, 2007

This story blows

There’s a foul wind blowing off Cape Cod.
The bizarre battle over Cape Wind
By ADAM REILLY | May 30, 2007

Table manners

My first blackjack experience came as a newly minted college grad.
In blackjack experience teaches, intuition sustains
By MARK JURKOWITZ | April 29, 2007

Rebirth of a salesman

He’s going too fast.
The return of Russel Pergament
By ADAM REILLY | April 25, 2007

The WRKO shuffle

No Boston media institution is more unstable these days than WRKO Radio.
Sizing up the station’s extreme makeover
By ADAM REILLY | January 24, 2007

Killer coke

If you follow presidential politics, you know that Barack Obama’s past use of illegal drugs is suddenly a topic of great interest.
Obama, Bush, and the warped politics of drug use. Plus, ConCon coverage falls short, and Finneran’s foes raise a fuss
By ADAM REILLY | January 10, 2007

Top 20 of 2006

Unsexy men, terrible lyrics, season finales, SuicideGirls, sex, MySpace, and sneakers. The stories you clicked on most in '06.
ThePhoenix.com's 20 most popular stories of the year
By PHOENIX STAFF | December 29, 2006

Flashbacks: October 13, 2006

These selections, culled from our back files, were compiled by Dan Peleschuk and Ian Sands.
The Boston Phoenix has been covering the trends and events that shape our times since 1966.
By FLASHBACKS | October 11, 2006

Reality TV meets the newsroom

Even in an era of buzzwords such as media “transparency” and “interactive dialogue” (between news consumers and news producers), what’s happening at the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington, is pretty strange stuff.
Trailblazer Steve Smith brings newspaper transparency to a whole new level
By MARK JURKOWITZ | June 21, 2006

Your ombuddy

Part internal-affairs cop, part complaint department, American news ombudsmen are truly a unique breed.
Once the most thankless job in journalism, the lowly ombudsman is now poised to be a star
By MARK JURKOWITZ | June 19, 2006

The media’s worst nightmare?

Many of those familiar with his work tend to see him as the real deal — a passionate, sincere, and surprisingly idealistic advocate who is no fun to face across the aisle.
Howard Cooper is quickly making a name for himself as the city’s go-to guy for libel
By MARK JURKOWITZ | June 07, 2006

Assembly-line Investigations

The May 24 “Team 5 Investigates” story had many of the elements of classic journalistic sleuthing.
‘Team 5 Investigates’ is blurring the lines between investigative reporting and, well, just reporting
By MARK JURKOWITZ | June 06, 2006

Stop whining and do your job

A president with a history of antipathy toward the media complains openly about the “knee-jerk liberal press.”
The White House and the media are not supposed to get along, stupid
By MARK JURKOWITZ | May 28, 2006

Glossed over

One sign of how the magazine business is doing these days is a three-month-old Web log called “Magazine Death Pool.”
The magazine racks are filled with dying publications — but why is the glossy’s forecast not nearly as gloomy as newsprint’s?
By MARK JURKOWITZ | May 17, 2006

Liberty or Death

“You bet we’re alive — and kicking!” declared the headline on Herald owner Pat Purcell’s feisty message to readers on Monday.
Pat Purcell’s sale of CNC adds a mysterious new player to the media market
By MARK JURKOWITZ | May 11, 2006

Phoenix's Jurkowitz to depart

Media critic Mark Jurkowitz will be leaving the paper on or around July 1 to become the associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism headquartered in Washington, DC.
Destination: Project for Excellence
By PHOENIX STAFF | May 05, 2006

Listing forward

Like anyone who works a specific beat — sportswriters and political writers come to mind — media critics acquire lots of impressions, opinions, and stray observations that never actually make it into print, and yet they are worth musing over.
Sometimes a media critic just wants to herd a few cats
By MARK JURKOWITZ | May 03, 2006

Blue (-Eyed) Devils?

Once the sensational Duke University rape case — with its irresistible brew of race, class, and sex — triggered the predictable media circus, an equally predictable chorus of earnest-sounding criticism began to roll in.
The perfect storm of race, class, and sex makes the alleged Duke rape tale perfect fodder for the ‘justice’-obsessed media
By MARK JURKOWITZ | April 26, 2006

Won’t get fooled again

Seymour Hersh’s April 17 New Yorker article, which reported that a “messianic” Bush White House was contemplating regime change and tactical nuclear strikes to pre-empt Iran’s bomb-building program, landed with its own explosive power last week.
With reports of Iran-war drums beating, how will the media react this time around?
By MARK JURKOWITZ | April 25, 2006

The 100 worst lyrics of all time - side

By | April 21, 2006

Bad sports

I agree with Mark Jurkowitz (“ Muckrakers in the Outfield ,” April 7) that there are mostly yes men reporting sports, but I’d focus my analysis differently.
Letters to the Boston editor: April 14, 2006
By EDITORIAL | April 12, 2006

Muckrakers in the outfield

Last week was an important moment in the history of American journalism.
It’s time for baseball — and all sports — to be covered just like any other multi-billion-dollar business
By MARK JURKOWITZ | April 05, 2006

Wild and crispy - side

By | April 05, 2006

High noon at the Herald

Pat Purcell’s speech last Friday at a UMass Boston conference on ethnic media was auspiciously timed.
If Purcell sells off the suburbs, what will happen to his big-city tab?
By MARK JURKOWITZ | March 30, 2006

Let it bleed

The horrific New York murder of 24-year-old Imette St. Guillen pitted the city’s two major dailies against each other in ways that reflect the strengths and weaknesses, as well as the editorial philosophies, of the two rivals.
When a pretty Boston woman is murdered in New York, the Boston dailies go to war
By MARK JURKOWITZ | March 22, 2006

Numbing carnage

On the morning of March 8, viewers had their first sip of coffee to a grisly sight on the news shows: grainy video of roughly two-dozen dead Iraqis lined up in a makeshift morgue, many of them apparently bound and strangled.
Once an upbeat hit, Bush’s Iraq show has jumped the shark
By MARK JURKOWITZ | March 15, 2006

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