Science education may be on the decline. The general level of scientific knowledge may be headed back to the Dark Ages. But the language of science has never been more popular.

Or more woefully abused. Continue reading...

The book review sections of major newspapers are branching out to the blogosphere.

Washington Post: Short Stack

New York Times: Paper Cuts

The Guardian: Books

Which British television actors are best at pulling off American accents? Readers of BBC's Radio Times give cheers to Hugh Laurie of "House" and jeers to Michelle Ryan of "Bionic Woman."

The "Letters to the Editor" section of the Los Angeles Times has featured some heated discussion about what kind of vocabulary is suitable for printing in a newspaper. And no, this doesn't have anything to do with the "seven dirty words" famously satirized by the late lamented George Carlin. Instead, it's about some moderately challenging vocab items that you might expect to find on a Visual Thesaurus word list. Continue reading...

Journalism experts grapple with how the newspaper industry can survive the digital age.

The Vanishing Newspaper

Digital Journalism

-30-: The Collapse of the Great American Newspaper

Digitizing the News

The untimely passing of Tim Russert, host of NBC's Meet the Press, has led many to reminisce about his lasting influence on political reporting. Some obituaries mentioned that Russert has been credited with popularizing the terms "red state" and "blue state," to refer to states favoring Republican or Democratic candidates. Though Russert's memorable analysis of the twists and turns of the 2000 presidential election no doubt played a significant role in popularizing the "red/blue state" designations, the history of the color coding is surprisingly complicated. Continue reading...

Regret the Error surveys notices in the press correcting journalistic slip-ups — ranging from the hilarious to the alarming.