Media

If corporations can play the talk radio game, so can labor unions. United Auto Workers has put money and resources into developing the i.e. America Radio Network, which syndicates liberal talk radio from coast to coast. "Following on i.e.'s successes, AnShell media, according to industry rumors, is on the verge of achieving funding goals to roll out America's second liberal radio network in January," notes i.e. America talker Thom Hartmann.

Some 1,500 journalists, political reformers and citizens at large are convening in our home town of Madison, Wisconsin, November 7th - 9th for the National Conference on Media Reform. The conference begins Friday with a 2pm panel on 'Media and Propaganda During Wartime' featuring professor Nancy Snow, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and our own John Stauber, co-author of Weapons of Mass Deception.

Local public affairs shows account for less than one half of one percent of all programming on local television stations, according to a study released by the Alliance for Better Campaigns. "Broadcasters have relegated local public-affairs programming to the very bottom of the heap - behind cartoons, kitchenware specials, reruns, courtroom dramas, dating shows and late-night talk shows," reports Jennifer Harper. "The analysis found, for example, that there were three times as many 'Seinfeld' reruns as local public-affairs shows on TV stations nationwide.

Charlie Reina, a former producer for Fox News, has posted a letter to the Poynter Institute's online journalism forum, explaining how the network deliberately slants the news. "Editorially, the FNC newsroom is under the constant control and vigilance of management," he writes. "The pressure ranges from subtle to direct. First of all, it's a news network run by one of the most high-profile political operatives of recent times. ... The roots of FNC's day-to-day on-air bias are actual and direct.