Smart Media

This group of links identifies small publications and columnists that I consider especially likely to have intelligent content.

Michael Barone is one of the best political analysts in the country.  He is almost as good on policy as he is on elections.   The Almanac of American Politics, which he writes with Grant Ujifusa, is an indispensable reference for any serious student of American politics.  His columns appear regularly in US News and World Report, and are always worth reading.   This personal Web site gives you a nice set of links to his work.

The City Journal is a quarterly with some of the best analyses of, as the name suggests, urban problems, anywhere.

Front Page Magazine is David Horowitz's site and has his virtues and vices.  He, and the site, are absolutely fearless; they will say or publish anything, without the slightest nod toward political correctness.   They also have more taste than I do for political invective; Horowitz sees the struggle between left and right as a war, and so uses some weapons I would not.   The site has some of the best pieces on the struggle against Communism, published anywhere.  Ronald Radosh's articles on the subject are especially impressive.   The site is also willing—and this shows their courage—to cover stories on black racism, filling in an immense gap, since the mainstream media avoids this subject like leprosy.

Morton Kondracke is that rare specimen, a genuinely moderate columnist.  When almost every other political columnist seems to have chosen sides, Kondracke seems to be truly devoted to the good of the entire country.  Not as flashy as some, but about as honest and reliable as they come.

For years, Media Research has been accumulating evidence that the media, especially the TV networks are biased against conservatives and Republicans.   They have accumulated a massive amount of data in support of that proposition.  This is the first place to start if you want to investigate media bias.

Michael Medved is a writer, movie reviewer, and talk show host.  His site has links to his articles, by date, and his movie reviews, by several categories.  This is an excellent site for finding movies that will not offend, if you have strong religious beliefs or even just traditional values.  Although he likes some movies that do not uphold either, as do I, he warns viewers about potentially offensive material in his reviews.

Jim Pinkerton was an adviser to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.  He even admits to having worked on the hapless 1992 Bush campaign.  He appears to have no further desire for office, and so one can read his work without wondering about his motives.   In general, his columns and articles are insightful and fair minded.  Surprisingly, this moderate conservative has found a home at the Long Island Newsday, a newspaper so liberal it sometimes seems to be a parody, as well as Tech Central Station, a techno-libertarian Web publication.

The Public Interest is one of the two principal neoconservative publications (The other is Commentary.) that did so much to critique Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.  Since many of the authors had, at first, supported the measures they later came to condemn, the articles often have the edge that recent converts bring to a debate.  The circulation is tiny, but the magazine's influence has been, over the years, huge.