If you've been following the news media over the past two weeks, then you know the big stories inside and out: an Alaskan woman wrote a book and some elected officials are working on making new laws. Or so we've heard. You've seen endless consideration given to Sarah Palin's Going Rogue and heard debates about health care lasting well into the weekend (even at nighttime!), and if you have spent any time at all on this very site, then you've seen tons of analysis of that very concentrated news coverage. To be frank, it's all very exhausting. But the effects of these stories have a reach that extends well into the media world, even tickling the Mediaite Power Grid, leading to a little bit of rearrangement. (more...)

Over the weekend, renowned Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker penned a reasonably critical review of Malcolm Gladwell's latest, What The Dog Saw, a collection of his New Yorker features. But whereas many "bad" reviews resort to sloppy ad hominem arguments or sound merely like the settling of personal scores, Pinker's careful intellectual and substantive piece has already garnered a response from the best selling, afro-ed writer in the form of a letter to the editor of the New York Times. Hooray for civil, engaging debate! (more...)