Should audiences have to pay for digital entertainment? Is it really true that they’re not willing to? Though it’s nominally about music, the controversy that has blown up around an NPR blog post—in which a 20-year-old intern …
Media
The Car Talk Guys to Turn In Their Keys
This morning, Tom and Ray Magliozzi announced that this fall they will stop making Car Talk, the auto-advice/comedy show they’ve done for NPR for 25 years — pretty much, I realized, my entire adult driving life.
I haven’t always had a car all that time — I ditched the wheels for most of the ’90s after moving to New York City — …
War and Peace E-book Readers Find a Surprise in Their Nooks
A “search and replace” by Barnes & Noble switched every mention of “kindled” to “nookd” in Tolstoy’s classic
The Morning After: Come Back, Loud Debate Audiences! All Is Forgiven!
In the first umpteen Republican debates of this primary season, the crowds watching had as much of an active role as the participants, driving the energy of the debates and sometimes the day-after discussion. Whether it was booing a gay soldier or cheering the death penalty or going hog-wild over Newt Gingrich’s lambasting of CNN’s John …
Debate Watch: You Come at the King, You Best Not Miss
It’s become a cliché to say that each Republican debate is the most important yet—at least since the last Most Important Debate—but last night’s showdown in South Carolina had a strong claim, coming after Rick Perry’s drop-out, Rick Santorum’s retroactive win in Iowa and Newt Gingrich’s twofer of climbing ahead in the polls while an …
Romney Didn’t Win Iowa After All. Is It Too Late To Change the Story?
Remember that narrow, 8-vote win Mitt Romney scored in the Iowa caucuses? The one that launched him on a 2-for-2 run in the first two GOP contests, building his momentum and underscoring his case as the inevitable nominee? Turns …
Regis Philbin: A Career on Camera
Regis Philbin, the legendary talk-show host, has logged a record-setting 16,700 hours on camera throughout his career. As he steps down from hosting Live With Regis and Kelly, TIME looks back at a television career that spanned decades.
Could Sex-Scandal Coverage Be Doing Herman Cain a Favor?
If there’s one thing people who follow politics are trained to believe, it’s that sex scandals bring politicians down. A sexual harassment scandal, doubly so. And an inartful response to a sexual harassment scandal, triply. So after Politico reported that Herman Cain had been accused of harassment by former employees who received …
Dead Tree Alert: Shooting to Kill
In my print TIME column this week, I take a look at the much-photographed and -videotaped death of Muammar Gaddafi. (The column is behind TIME’s paywall, because TIME is a for-profit publication in the business of making people …
Campaign Video: Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em for Herman Cain
Can this insane campaign ad help keep Herman Cain from inadvertently getting himself nominated?
Did You Need to See Gaddafi’s Corpse?
When Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in May, people criticized the government’s decision not to release the reportedly grisly photos of his corpse. Rumors were swirling that bin Laden was not actually dead, and the lack of visual evidence—as opposed to the leaked video that emerged after Saddam Hussein’s hanging—encouraged them. We …
NPR Listeners May Finally Be Protected from Opera Bias
Public radio listeners! Have you long worried that your station was undermining capitalism through its broadcasts of the Ring Cycle? Tired of having your children brainwashed by the socialistic messages of La Traviata? Well, fear …