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Todd Gitlin

Todd Gitlin is a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University and the author of Letters to a Young Activist. He is currently working with Liel Leibovitz on a book about chosen peoples.

Recent Articles

I.F. Stone, Journalist -- and Spy?

Was "Pancake" working with the KGB? The evidence is inconclusive.

Todd GitlinMay 20, 2009

American Radical: The Life and Times of I. F. Stone by D.D. Guttenplan, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 570 pages, $35.00

Times Out of Joint

Todd GitlinNov 19, 2006

Last summer, I made the mistake of asking a Los Angeles Times reporter how he felt about life in a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tribune Company. He made a sour face and said he was worried about his pension. Dinner was ruined for a while.

Reporters are used to holding their breath at the Times, where the editorial staff has been cut from 1,200 souls to 940, a decrease of more than 20 percent, in the course of the six years since Tribune bought out Times Mirror, which owned the Times and several other major papers. To be a survivor at the L.A. Times is to be, well, resilient, says 28-year veteran staff writer Henry Weinstein, who specializes in legal affairs.

OUTRAGE ON THE DEFAMATION FRONT.

Todd GitlinOct 10, 2006

OUTRAGE ON THE DEFAMATION FRONT. Just to elaborate on the story Ezra mentioned: The NYU historian Tony Judt was invited to speak October 3 on the subject of �The Israel Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy� to a discussion group entitled Network 20/20, which always holds its meetings at Manhattan�s Polish Consulate. But Judt received a call from Patricia Harrington, the president of the group, canceling his talk. She told Judt (as he recounted in a widely distributed e-mail) that the Consulate had been threatened by the Anti-Defamation League, who �warned them off hosting anything involving Tony Judt.�

All the President's Pets

Todd GitlinJun 18, 2006

Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush by Eric Boehlert (Free Press, 352 pages, $25.00)

The Harder He Blows

Todd GitlinMar 23, 2006

Chris Matthews blows hard. This may sound less like a news flash than a crashing redundancy. And it's true that yelling is nothing new for the omnipresent MSNBC/CNBC barking head, for whom picking up the pace and pumping up the volume almost always substitute for picking apart the fairy tales that keep the Bush White House intact. But in recent months Matthews' obsequiousness toward his favorites and nastiness toward his bêtes noires have ballooned to new proportions.

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