In the 1840s American poet Walt Whitman was a newspaper editor in Brooklyn, running the Daily Eagle. Before Paul Lazarsfeld came up with the focus group, here’s how one of Whitman’s editorials described the relationship between journalist and reader: “We really feel a desire to talk on many subjects to all the people of Brooklyn;…

Jeff Matthews is good. If you’re not familiar with his work, one of the world’s best occasional columnists shows off his art right here. Regular columnists, and even irregular ones like me, can hang our heads in shame.

U.S. columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson on TV news: In my lifetime, we’ve gone from all the news that’s fit to print to making any old story fit the available format. If you have an hour-long news-magazine show, stretch that unsolved murder to fill the hour. If you have a headline- news show and no real…