Tagged with 'journalism'
It's the economy, stupid
Hidden in the intro to this BusinessWeek article - ostensibly about the health-care industry - is an jaw-dropping nugget of information. See if you find it:
If you really want to understand what makes the U.S. economy tick these days, don’t go to Silicon Valley, Wall Street, or Washington. Just take a short trip to your local hospital. Park where you don’t block the ambulances, and watch the unending flow of doctors, nurses, technicians, and support personnel. You’ll have a front-row seat at the health-care economy.
For years, everyone from politicians on both sides of the aisle to corporate execs to your Aunt Tilly have justifiably bemoaned American health care—the out-of-control costs, the vast inefficiencies, the lack of access, and the often inexplicable blunders.
But the very real problems with the health-care system mask a simple fact: Without it the nation’s labor market would be in a deep coma. Since 2001, 1.7 million new jobs have been added in the health-care sector, which includes related industries such as pharmaceuticals and health insurance. Meanwhile, the number of private-sector jobs outside of health care is no higher than it was five years ago.
Did you catch it? Here, let me highlight it for you:
the number of private-sector jobs outside of health care is no higher than it was five years ago
Or, phrase it the other way around:
the only sector that produced any net new jobs in the U.S. economy between 2001 and 2006 was health care
For even more mind-boggling details, read the latest installment in CJR’s series on the looming general election, which links a number of reports on the state of the US economy.
Shorter version: it’s much, much worse than I thought.
Love Thy Neighbor
I had covered the groundbreaking of the minaret—the first to be built in St. Louis. The mayor had been there to praise pluralism and throw a little dirt around for the cameras……
Cable News
Summarizing Liz Cox Barrett’s summary of the State of the News Media report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism:
Money spent on reporting…
The Wire; David Simon's quest; journalism and the city
Over the last three weeks or so, I watched the first four seasons of HBO’s “The Wire”, catching up in time to watch the fiifth and final season, which…
The media in Iraq
Here’s an interesting survey about the demographics and opinions of journalists currently working in Iraq. CJR has a good summary I find their intro…
Time, Coulter and the State of the Discourse
Time puts Ann Coulter on the cover, and everybody goes nuts.
For what it's worth, you can read the TIME piece online here, though I haven't yet and I…