Culture

Was first lady Michelle Obama right to face down a heckler at a Democratic Party fundraiser Tuesday night? The commentariat was not of one mind on Wednesday. Peter Wallsten reported in the Washington Post, “Obama was addressing a Democratic Party fundraiser in a private Kalorama home in Northwest Washington when Ellen Sturtz, 56, a lesbian…

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told visiting journalists of color Monday that if the Justice Department had to conduct its recent leak investigations over again, it would give news organizations notice “so as not to give the impression that journalists were feeling criminalized and the target of the investigation,” according to Hugo Balta, president of the…

Citing the stipulation that the meeting would be off the record, the National Association of Black Journalists, the Asian American Journalists Association and the news service representing black newspapers said Sunday that they would not attend Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s Monday meeting with journalists of color to refine guidelines on dealing with journalists…

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is following up on his promise to meet with news media representatives Thursday and Friday in the wake of outrage over the Justice Department’s leak investigations, but it’s an open question whether journalists of color will be present. Holder “is expected to meet this week with the Washington bureau…

“Judging from reactions to remarks by the president and first lady during separate commencement speeches recently, I have to imagine that it’ll be a bit of a bummer for Hispanics if a Latino is ever elected president,” Esther J. Cepeda wrote for the Washington Post Writers Group. “I don’t particularly care for Barack Obama’s politics,…

President Obama ordered a review on Thursday of the Justice Department’s procedures for legal investigations involving reporters, acknowledging that he was ‘troubled’ that multiple inquiries into national security leaks could chill investigative reporting,” as Mark Landler reported for the New York Times. Later Thursday, the Justice Department announced that “As part of that review, the…

The first fatality identified as a casualty of the Oklahoma tornado was Ja’Nae Hornsby, 9, an African American student who was among seven people found dead Monday, drowned under the rubble at Plaza Towers Elementary School in suburban Moore, Okla. Ja’Nae’s father, Joshua Hornsby, released her name, and tearful family members told her story to…

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama addressed freshly minted African American graduates over the weekend, reopening a debate that has dogged him since he was a candidate. On such occasions, how much emphasis should he give to addressing the “personal responsibility” of African Americans? How much should he focus instead on the responsibility of…

“Central Park Five” Film Makes Journalists’ Guilt Clear “The Central Park Five” has been a book, a theatrical movie and a PBS film that aired last month, indicting the news media as well as police and prosecutors in each iteration. But how much difference will it make? “Filmmakers Sarah and Ken Burns, not to mention…

“The burgeoning ‘scandal’ over how the IRS chose for review 75 applicants for tax-exempt status puts on full display an unfortunate tendency in journalism — to quote people accurately without explaining the underlying context,” David Cay Johnston wrote Wednesday for Columbia Journalism Review. “Yes, it is as wrong for IRS employees to select groups to…