THE MEDIA HAVE HEADED, en masse, into Iowa. As usual in a presidential election year, it’s the first preparatory event in America’s whole unfolding primary process. And in Iowa, after a bad snowstorm that interrupted things, even the often sedate New York Times says that campaigning has now returned to “a fevered pitch”.       Continue reading “Iowa and Onward – the Oldsters Battle” »

AFTER MONTHS OF EURO-TRAVEL, I’m back in my home base of New York City. I returned at that point in the calendar when journalists of a certain bent try as an annual ritual to predict the coming year.   Continue reading “As the Year Turns, What Do the Media Forecast?” »

Dateline: Dublin, Ireland — I FIND IT INVALUABLE, always, to be viewing world events via a global lens, instead of through purely American eyes. This week there’s been a powerful array of global forces at work, not least in the Middle East (left), and some good international reporting on those forces.   Continue reading “Views on Coverage of a Violent World from Ireland” »

Dateline: London, England – THE ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR has been dominating the media here as in much of the rest of the world. And I’m afraid that like many international crises it has lamentably been yet another chance for the British, be they politicians or journalists, to slip again into an old habit.   Continue reading “From Today’s Diminished Status, UK Seeks Global Stage for A.I.’s Dangers” »

WE CAN REJOICE THIS FALL in a remarkable double exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s been mounted jointly with the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, where it showed through Spring and early Summer before coming to New York.   Continue reading “Close, but Contrasting, in the Medium of Fine Art” »