Another media watchdog debuts p.

By: Editorial Staff

FORBES MEDIACRITIC, A quarterly journalism review with some biting critiques but no advertising, debuted Nov. 1 in a difficult niche.
A spin-off of the annual user's guide to journalists that Forbes Inc. acquired last year from conservative economic consultant Jude Wanniski, the review is a response to the nation's increasing interest in the media.
It costs $7.95 a copy, $29.95 a year, and was not expected to get advertising, at least initially.
"As critics, we're not here to grind a partisan ax any more than we exist to be apologists for some journalism establishment," editor Terry Eastland, a former spokesman for the Reagan Justice Department, writes in an introduction to the 108-page debut issue.
Despite the non-partisan proclamation and debut stories by Washington Post and Baltimore Sun reporters, the review has strong Republican leanings: Forbes president and CEO Malcolm Forbes Jr. supports Republican causes, Forbes publisher is former Reagan Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Eastland is a conservative and former American Spectator media columnist. Wanniski, who founded the annual Media Guide, is editor at large.
The publication will seek a broader audience of literate readers than the journalists attracted by existing journalism reviews, Eastland said.
The first issue features pieces by New Republic magazine editor Fred Barnes debunking the "myth" of a health care crisis, American Spectator assistant managing editor Christopher Caldwell questioning the media's efforts to broaden coverage of minorities, Sun White House correspondent Carl Cannon on why the media ignored President Clinton's proposal to condone homosexuals in the armed forces until it exploded in controversy after his election.
Forbes continues the media guide as Forbes MediaGuide 500, an annual critical rating of the nation's 500 "most important journalists."
Forbes MediaCritic joins a field noteworthy for the elusiveness of financial success. The two largest journalism reviews depend on the kindness of grants and universities, and a monthly newspaper journal, News Inc., folded this year, only to be resurrected as a newsletter.