The Press: New Cop on the Beat

American journalism does not possess any agency to guard its standards and supervise its practitioners. A newspaper publisher can give criminal advice, lie to the public, poison its intelligence without being held accountable for his conduct.

Political Scientist Leo C. Rosten's comments in his 1937 book. The Washington Correspondents, are as applicable today as they were 25 years ago. Few policemen patrol the U.S. journalism beat. Last week in Manhattan, journalism's undermanned police force got a new recruit.

Its name: the Columbia Journalism Review, a quarterly devoted exclusively to criticism of the nation's press, and promising to "deal forthrightly with what it finds...

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