Very detailed and carefully researched piece on a topic where it's difficult to gather data. Wellington tracks down & compiles multiple leads & reports with remarkable tenacity, taking much care to identify sources & to document. This brings together the best of old-style journalism [high standards in data & accuracy & fact checking] with the best of new blogosphere [raising important questions & linking multiple strands of inquiry & voices & networks working on similar questions].

Once again Wellington has given us a well documented look at the real life conditions that determine the quality of journalism today. This on-the-ground, careful look at a) the struggling new spaces for new kinds of journalism outside the mega-, overcommercialized media and b) the Big Money drenched social spaces within the convention which shape the 'mainstream politics' where mainstream journalists, politicians & opinion-makers hobnob. She also puts the current scene into longer ... More »

It is good to hear from this author on this subject. Beeman is an anthropologist who has been prolific in writing for public audiences about complex cultural / political dimensions of current conflicts. So, he brings a well seasoned judgement to analysis of historical / political contexts to current geopolitical dramas--drawing out dimensions that are far too hidden in current US mainstream media. While I agree with other reviewers that he could have more effectively sourced this ... More »

This is a superb analysis of the under-reported civic struggles in Appalachian coalfields over the radical form of stripmining that is creating almost abiotic landscapes--in a region that has major headwaters and some of the highest biodiversity of any temperate region in the world. It is important because this story is under-reported yet relates to acute national issues of climate change (since coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel for greenhouse gases) and social justice (since the ... More »

The weakness in this piece is that it pays no attention to the impacts on local people or the environment. It also doesn't show the big picture of parallel damages to coalfield residents and ecologies in other parts of the world. It is true that one can't do everything in one article, but this seems to be a 'frame' in national debates about coal--a tendency to frame out damages caused during production, and to focus on post production damages (like global warming or air quality). The ... More »

Excellent discussion. Given the way her personal life has been buffeted by media sensationalizing of her personal story, a lesser person than Elizabeth Edwards could have spoken from a sense of injury. Instead she takes the high road to try to understand how the public good is at stake. She keeps her sights on big questions about what kind of communicative spaces are needed to keep democracy vibrant.

This story is trapped within 'frames' that are widely distributed in mass media and seem to unconsciously shape the interviewing, researching & writing strategies used here. First, it makes passing reference to economic hardship but spends almost all its text on 'lifestyle'--as if its unhealthy personal choices that are the problem. This individualizes the issue rather than placing it in wider structural contexts which are well documented to have direct causal effects. So many key ... More »