COMM 386: Quality journalism in The New Yorker / PLEASE READ

Must reading while it's still up on the internet -- the Nov. 17 issue of The New Yorker. In fact, it's worth buying in dead-tree format (in other words, print). It only costs $4.50, and I think it's worth keeping. Here's why:

• David Remnick has a story called "The Joshua Generation" on the role that race played in President-elect Obama's campaign. Included is the most lucid explanation I've seen yet (and practically the only one in a majority-white publication) of why so many blacks weren't especially bothered by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's, uh, jeremiads.
  
• George Packer has an article headed "The New Liberalism" that's as good as or better than the Time story I linked to the other day. The cartoon of Barack Obama as FDR, complete with top hat and cigarette holder, is worth the price of the magazine alone.
  
• Ryan Lizza has a detailed inside look at Obama's campaign. [Link below.]
  
• And David Grann has one for McCain's.

All four are seasoned reporters and first-class writers who have been in The New Yorker repeatedly. In my judgment, they're going to be worth re-reading as long as Obama is in office. They're that complete and incisive.

This is a reminder of something I've been meaning to say in class -- there's a lot of quality journalism out there, if you go beyond the cable TV networks and even the New York Times and the Washington Post. And the stuff in the New Yorker is as good as it gets. So if you read these stories in this week's New Yorker and quote them in your term paper (analytical article) and/or final, I will find ways to reward you for that effort. Do I make my meaning sufficiently clear?

@#$%! it! Since I posted this, they've gone up with the Nov. 24 issue. But you can still link to Lizza's "How Obama Won" piece, and the links to the other two stories still work. (Hint: SCI's Becker Library carries The New Yorker, and it has a photocopying machine.) And if you like Texas barbecue, Calvin Trillin has an story on the " best Texas BBQ in the world" in this week's issue. Trillin, a gifted essayis, grew up in Kansas City and is a fanatic about barbecue. So it's a nice consolation prize for missing the McCain article.