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The overseas press | Overseas, reality mixes with euphoria about Obama COMMENTARY His victory is seen as monumental, his talents as enormous and there is great good will. But many have questions regarding what the president-elect can accomplish, given U.S. and world conditions. 
Paring profits | An economic slowdown is no time to shrink the news COMMENTARY Cranberg and Bezanson write that “the need for information doesn’t contract in step with the economy. The reverse is true; troubled times demand more skilled journalism, more interviews, more probing, bigger newsholes.” Possibly, they suggest, foundations that aren’t ordinarily interested in the press will reconsider their priorities.
Staffers posed as consumers | Sen. Grassley knows a good story when he sees it COMMENTARY AARP, asked by the Iowa senator to explain its profits from insurance plans it touts, suspends marketing of one of them. Gil Cranberg laments that the press has pretty much ignored this important story—and points out that it’s not too late for reporters and editors to get in on it.
Obama as a weapon of ‘mass attraction’ | An international election, not just an American one COMMENTARY The overseas press: In Paris, the American nightspots were filled--with French people. In Indonesia, there were 15-minute silences in schools all week so children could pray for Obama. In Great Britain, The Guardian writes that Joe the plumber stood for what used to be a "silent majority" of white working-class Americans but is now a (not so) silent minority. And José the plumber, the newspaper notes, voted for Obama.
The overseas press | Internationally, it's all Obama COMMENTARY The overseas press: Obama’s half hour on TV Wednesday seems to have sealed the deal. A Turkish writer puts it this way: “People want to see a new America.”
The overseas press | The international media take shots at Sarah Palin COMMENTARY She is called a disaster, an albatross, a hypocrite. The Guardian predicts that after this election, we will have seen the last of her as a national candidate.
A crisis of legitimacy for capitalism | Some serious talk about 'spreading the wealth' COMMENTARY Henry Banta, citing a talk at Harvard by Lawrence Summers, notes that there has been staggering income redistribution – upward – in recent decades.
Hiding the news | The silent treatment regarding Vietnam POWs COMMENTARY Sydney Schanberg has been trying for many years to get the press to look into the fate of American POWs who weren’t accounted for at the end of the Vietnam war. He says John McCain has played a central role in suppression of government files—but even that’s not enough to get reporters or editors interested.
The overseas press | The U.S. is widely criticized in the financial crisis COMMENTARY The Overseas Press: A Japanese official says, “We made a mess of solving our banking crisis in the 1990s…Washington carefully studied what we did and made a bigger mess.” And in Tehran, there is some gloating.
| Anybody read the L.A. Times? Rolling Stone? COMMENTARY Leading news organizations, the TV networks and cable news political operations are disregarding well-documented news stories that by themselves, if true, could cost John McCain the election. The media are hiding the news, not reporting it.
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