Analysis: Our Commentaries and Backgrounders

This section, Commentaries and Backgrounders, contains our more concise research analyses, such as op eds, articles, speeches, and quick reports. These are distinguished from our more detailed empirical research studies. They are listed below in chronological order. Or you can use the menus on the left to filter our entire archive and find exactly what you want.
  • The Future of Network TV News: A PEJ Roundtable

    The Project for Excellence in Journalism introduces the first in a series of nine roundtables with industry experts on the future of the news media. Today’s roundtable concerns the changing landscape of Network TV news.
  • PEJ's Virtual Roundtable Summer Series

    The Project for Excellence in Journalism has put together a series of nine online panel discussions of industry leaders about the future of journalism.
  • The Tribune Co. Controversy

    Members of the Chandler family are pushing the Tribune Company to sell off some of its media assets. Tribune is pushing back. PEJ looks at the dispute.

  • Remembering James Carey

    James Carey, a founding member of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, passed away May 23 at age 71. Journalist, educator, scholar, Carey may have been the most influential thinker about journalism since Walter Lippmann. Learn more about this extraordinary thinker.
  • Philadelphia Story

    The city’s two dailies have been sold to a group of local businessmen for $562 million. PEJ offers a look at the deal’s history, players and impact.
  • Last Call at the ASNE Saloon

    Text of a speech Carroll, the former editor of the Los Angeles Times, gave at the 2006 ASNE Convention in Seattle, Washington, on April 26, 2006.
  • Charles Gibson's Paul White Award Speech

    Gibson, host of ABC's Good Morning America, gave this speech at the RTNDA convention in Las Vegas upon receiving the Paul White Award on April 24, 2006.
  • The Knight Ridder Sale and the Outlook for Newspapers

    The enduring cynicism over the Knight Ridder sale has a hollow sound. The events set in motion by the McClatchy Company’s purchase can spark a chain reaction (so to speak) that would bring something close to the new economic model journalists have been wishing for.
  • Media Anger Management

    Much has been made of the surge of emotion among journalists who covered the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and to a lesser degree Hurricane Rita.
  • Reporting Katrina

    A comprehensive look at how the news media are covering the hurricane and its aftermath.