When the debut issue of Brill's Content came out in July, the criticisms flew from far and wide. From the magazine's name (an ego trip for editor Steven Brill?) to its cover story criticizing Kenneth Starr (is Brill, who once donated $1,000 to Bill Clinton's campaign, a partisan lapdog?), Brill and his staff have taken considerable punishment. Some of that criticism is warranted: There's a self-congratulatory tone to both the Starr-bashing debut and the fallout-addressing follow-up, and it's hard not to resent a media watchdog that's also a member of the media, complete with ads for cigarettes and Giorgio Armani. (Brill's failure to disclose his donation doesn't help his case, though he discusses it at length in hindsight.) But those apparent flaws are also inherent flaws: You shouldn't criticize and analyze your peers without being ready to criticize and analyze yourself, so Brill's Content's self-obsession is at least well-intentioned. Many of the attacks on Brill's Content are pretty self-serving, too (Starr has attacked Brill, as have some of the reporters his magazine has criticized), not to mention unfairly directed toward Brill, who is not the magazine's only reporter. Besides, Brill's Content as a whole is as fascinating as it is flawed. Many of the articles are unusually long, a byproduct of the magazine's low ad percentage and mission to combat capsule-style, detail-free news reporting and analysis. Pages and pages of letters to the editor (including a lengthy, footnoted missive by Starr) offer a variety of pans and praise; according to the editors, the first issue of Brill's Content inspired over 6,000 letters and e-mails, which is a good sign. And there are some pretty compelling pieces about individual media: A devil's-advocate defense of USA Today provides in-depth reporting of how the much-maligned newspaper runs, though a finger-wagging piece about the subjectivity of baseball announcers inspires a fevered "Duh." There's a certain amount of choir-preaching about Brill's Content—if you read it, you probably already pay close attention to the media, and probably agree with the magazine's stated mission—but for the most part, it's still surprisingly entertaining, offering something for every investigative consumer of the media.