Jack Shafer

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Jack Shafer (born November 14, 1951{{not verified in body|date=March 2025}} is an American journalist who wrote about media for Politico until June 2024. Prior to joining Politico, he worked for Reuters, wrote and edited for Slate, and edited two city weeklies, Washington City Paper and SF Weekly.{{when|date=March 2025}}{{not verified in body|date=March 2025}}

Much of Shafer's writing focuses on what he sees as a lack of precision and rigor in reporting by the mainstream media,{{citation needed|date=March 2025}} which he says "thinks its duty is to keep you cowering in fright." He has frequently written about media coverage of the War on Drugs.{{not verified in body|date=March 2025}}

Early life and education

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Jack Shafer was born on November 14, 1951,{{where|date=March 2025}}{{citation needed|date=March 2025}} and grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, describing himself as "the son of lapsed Catholics".{{cite journal | author = Lisheron, Mark | year = 2012 | title = A Fearless Media Critic | journal = American Journalism Review | volume = 2012 | issue = February/March | url = https://ajrarchive.org/article.asp?id=5133 | access-date = 18 March 2025 | location = College Park, MD | publisher = University of Maryland, Philip Merrill College of Journalism }} As a newspaper boy in his youth, he delivered hardcopies of the Kalamazoo Gazette for five years. He chose not to do an undergraduate journalism degree, graduating instead from Western Michigan University with a B.A. in communications.{{when|date=March 2025}} In his first five years after graduation, Shafer lived in California, "then hitched through Asia, New Zealand and Australia".

Career

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Shafer has been writing and editing as an American journalist since the 1980s, and writing as a columnist since the early 2000s. After his postgraduate travels, he returned to the United States and freelanced until being hired as a managing editor by the libertarian magazine Inquiry; he would remain with it until it ceased publication in 1984. Early, Shafer would also do editing for SF Weekly.{{when|date=March 2025}}{{citation needed|date=March 2025}}

Washington City Paper's Russ Smith hired Shafer as an editor in 1985—described by Mark Lisheron of the American Journalism Review as "his [Shafer's] real break"—a position he'd hold until he joined Slate magazine online, after departing City Paper in 1995. About Smith's hiring, Shafer said, "I will always be grateful, although I reserve the right to be peculiar about how I express that gratitude".

At Slate, he wrote about the media and other topics; his 15 years of writing and editing there included penning its "Press Box" column, which he began in 2000. He was laid off with a number of others by Slate in August 2011, going on to work for Reuters, before joining Politico. {{when|date=March 2025}}{{citation needed|date=March 2025}} Shafer wrote most recently about media for Politico (through June 2024).{{Cite news |author=Tani, Max |date=2024-06-25 |title=Top Reporters Leave Politico | work=Semafor | url=https://www.semafor.com/article/06/25/2024/top-reporters-leave-politico |access-date=2024-09-29}}

Significant series

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= Posner plagiarism reporting =

Responding to and confirming a reader tip, Shafer reported that Gerald Posner, The Daily Beast's chief investigative reporter, had plagiarized—presented "identical or nearly identical"—sentences (five in number) from a single story published by The Miami Herald.{{cite web|author=Graham, David A.|date=April 19, 2010| orig-date = February 10, 2010 | title=Gerald Posner: 4 Popular Excuses for Plagiarism |work=Newsweek.com|url=https://www.newsweek.com/gerald-posner-4-popular-excuses-plagiarism-75219 | access-date=April 18, 2018}} Thereafter, Posner issued a "no-reservation mea culpa", The Daily Beast published a correction, and Shafer responded with approval for the acknowledgment, by both, of the plagiarism.{{cite web |author=Shafer, Jack|title=Plagiarism at the Daily Beast: Gerald Posner Concedes Lifting from the Miami Herald. |date=2010-02-05 |website=Slate |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407142929/https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/02/plagiarism-at-the-daily-beast-gerald-posner-concedes-lifting-from-the-miami-herald.html |archive-date=2023-04-07 |url-status=live |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/02/plagiarism-at-the-daily-beast-gerald-posner-concedes-lifting-from-the-miami-herald.html}}

However, three days later, Shafer published further cases perceived as plagiarism—content from a Miami Herald blog, a Miami Herald editorial, Texas Lawyer and a health care journalism blog{{Cite news |author=Shafer, Jack|date=2010-02-08 |title=More Posner Plagiarism |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/02/case-reopened-reviewing-new-examples-of-plagiarism-by-the-daily-beast-s-gerald-posner.html |access-date=2024-10-03 |work=Slate |language=en-US |issn=1091-2339}}{{primary source inline|date=March 2025}}{{better source needed|date=March 2025}}—from Posner's work, leading to Posner's departure from The Daily Beast.{{cite web |author=Shafer, Jack|title=The Posner Plagiarism Perplex: What to Make of Gerald Posner's Blog Statement |date=2010-02-11 |website=Slate |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230608224612/https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/02/making-sense-of-the-blog-statement-by-former-daily-beast-reporter-gerald-posner.html |archive-date=2023-06-08 |url-status=live |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2010/02/making-sense-of-the-blog-statement-by-former-daily-beast-reporter-gerald-posner.html}}Graham, writing in Newsweek, op. cit., states that Posner resigned. Shafer, writing in Slate, "The Posner Plagiarism Perplex", op. cit., quotes Edward Felsenthal, The Daily Beast Executive Editor, stating that "an in-house review of Posner’s work has turned up 'additional examples of copied and unattributed material'", further stating that Posner was dismissed. Posner offered an explanation of ways in which the plagiarism might have occurred, and explanation which has received critical review.

Perspectives

Much of Shafer's writing focuses on what he sees as a lack of precision and rigor in reporting by the mainstream media,{{according to whom|date=March 2025}} which he says "thinks its duty is to keep you cowering in fright."{{cite web|author=Shafer, Jack|date=December 14, 2010|title=Stupid Drug Story of the Week|work=Slate.com|url=http://www.slate.com/id/2277917/pagenum/all/| access-date=April 17, 2018}} He has frequently written about media coverage of the War on Drugs.{{citation needed|date=March 2025}}

=On journalistic awards=

Shafer "famously had zero use for [journalistic] awards", which "he groused, were a parade of self-congratulatory 'industry peacockery'", and so did not seek them out (the irony of which has been noted, given articles of his, e.g., "So You Won a Pulitzer: Who Cares?"). In his further writing on the subject, he proposed consideration of new awards categories, including "Most Compromised Local Paper", "Most Predictable Critic", "Most Tractable White House Reporter", and "Worst Editorial Page".{{cite web|author=Oremus, Will |date=September 30, 2016| title="I Regard All of My Columns as Failures and Hate Them Equally": Jack Shafer Did as Much as Anyone to Forge Slate's Sensibility. |work=Slate.com|url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/09/press-box-media-columnist-jack-shafer-helped-forge-slates-sensibility.html | access-date=April 18, 2018}}

= On his libertarianism =

Shafer wrote early in his career—through the early 1980s—for Inquiry, a libertarian magazine, and has written about "his own libertarian politics"; he has asserted in interview, however, that "they are driven in their criticism by a deep suspicion of authority more than any particular ideology". In particular, he appreciates approaches to criticism that are "clear-eyed", an attribute he ascribes to two "unapologetic leftists" that he admires, A.J. Liebling and Alexander Cockburn (having written a "paean" to Liebling, whom he is said to idolise).

In 2000, following the U.S. national elections, he presented his views as follows:

I agree with the Libertarian Party platform: much smaller government, much lower taxes, an end to income redistribution, repeal of the drug laws, fewer gun laws, a dismantled welfare state, an end to corporate subsidies, First Amendment absolutism, a scaled-back warfare state. (You get the idea.)"{{cite web|author=Shafer, Jack|url=http://www.slate.com/id/93134/|title=How Slatesters Voted|work=Slate.com|date=November 7, 2000|access-date=April 17, 2018}}

Later he wrote, "Traditionally, the state censors and marginalizes voices while private businesses tend to remain tolerant."{{cite web|author=Shafer, Jack|url=http://www.slate.com/id/2278626/pagenum/all|title=Whose Internet Is It, Anyway?|work=Slate.com|date=December 21, 2010|access-date=April 17, 2018}}

On April 20, 2020 Shafer expressed opposition to the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, saying, "You wouldn't put a dead man on a ventilator, would you?".{{cite web|author=Shafer, Jack|date=April 20, 2020|title=Don't Waste Stimulus Money on Newspapers|work=Slate.com|url=https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/04/20/dont-waste-stimulus-money-on-newspapers-197015| access-date=March 18, 2025}}

Rebuttals

Judith Miller, writing in her 2015 autobiography, harshly addresses Shafer's criticism of what he termed was her "wretched" reporting on Iraq in The New York Times—in at least six of his pieces in Slate—referring to his writing as "assaults" or "personal attacks", to his own reporting as "erroneou[s]", and arguing that he "never once sought a response from me", suggesting that his motivation was to achieve "buzz and internet clicks".{{cite book | author = Miller, Judith | date = 2015 | title = The Story: A Reporter's Journey | pages = 349–350 | location = New York, NY | publisher = Simon and Schuster | isbn = 9781476716022 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=XXn0CwAAQBAJ | access-date = 18 March 2025}}

Personal life

Shafer is married to Nicole Arthur, who has worked as a features editor in the Style section of The Washington Post; they have two daughters. Mark Lisheron's article in the AJR desscribes him as "follow[ing] baseball, but... repelled by the $9 cup of beer at the park", and as one who has "force[d] himself outdoors... add[ing] birding to hiking, which has taken him from Newfoundland to the Galapagos Islands".