Ari's Gold on 'E&P'

Former legendary 'E&P' intern Ari Berman, long at The Nation now, notes 'E&P' in crisis this week in article in print issue not yet online. Here it is, and thanks Ari.

ANOTHER MEDIA CASUALTY? Editor & Publisher might be the most important publication you've never heard of. I knew little of the magazine's 125-year history of reporting on the newspaper industry until I interned there in the winter of 2002-03. E&P's editor, Greg Mitchell, told me then that he wanted to scrutinize the media's shoddy coverage of the impending war in Iraq--particularly the cheerleading agitprop of major news organizations. E&P's small staff in Lower Manhattan became a crack fact-checking and watchdog crew, asking the tough questions that so few in Washington asked, shining a spotlight on the early dissenters such as Knight Ridder's Washington bureau and highlighting the views of editorial pages--some of which were surprisingly skeptical--across the country. I remember Mitchell reading the antiwar editorials of the Orange County Register, a bastion of right-wing Republicanism, with a keen eye and wonder. The magazine won a Neal Award--"the Pulitzer Prize of business journalism"--three years in a row for its Iraq coverage.

So Mitchell described it as quite a "shock" to learn, on December 10, that the Nielsen Company was immediately closing E&P--seemingly yet another casualty of the industry it so dutifully covered. But maybe this sad story will still have a happy ending. Based on "overwhelming reader and advertiser demand" in the wake of the surprise announcement, Mitchell said the staff planned to publish another issue on January 4 and hoped to strike a deal with Nielsen or find a new buyer. Let's hope they can. On Iraq and many other issues, history will look kindly on E&P. May its indispensable reporting, in one form or another, live on.