Media

From Muckrakers to Buckrakers

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

Three decades after their stories in the Washington Post led to President Nixon's resignation, Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein have sold their notebooks and other materials from the Watergate years to the University of Texas at Austin for $5 million. "Woodward and Bernstein have found a new way to buckrake," comments Richard Blow. "While that may make them richer, it doesn't enrich the profession, or the regard in which the public holds it."

No
Main Source: 
TomPaine.com, April 21, 2003
Topics: 
Journalism
Ethics

Email Spoofing to Attack Activists

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

"Arab-American activist Nawar Shora checked his e-mail one day and found scores of angry messages asking why he hated Americans and Jews," writes Anick Jesdanun. "The messages were responding to e-mails marked as coming from him. Only one big problem: he never sent the hate mail." Shora was the victim of a new form of harassment in which fake e-mail is sent using real addresses. "The tactic, known as e-mail spoofing, requires little technical know-how and no illegal computer break-ins.

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Main Source: 
Associated Press, April 18, 2003
Topics: 
Activism
Internet
Ethics

Poster Boy for War

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

Just when you thought American TV couldn't stoop any lower, now we have the plight of Ali Abbas, a 12-year-old Iraqi boy who lost both of his arms, along with his parents, three siblings and ten other relatives, in a missile strike on Baghdad. Now he has become "a redemption story, the kind we like," muses Joan Walsh. The U.S. military has flown him to Kuwait, where reporters are breathlessly following his medical treatment. "But some of the stories have tried to deal with an uncomfortable fact. Ali is, um, well, he's angry at the U.S. for killing his family," Walsh writes.

No
Main Source: 
Salon.com, April 17, 2003
Topics: 
Iraq
Journalism
Ethics

MSNBC & CNN Imitating the Far-Right 'Fox Effect'

Submitted by John Stauber on

The New York Times reports on the 'Fox Effect' of MSNBC and CNN imitating Fox's vicious style of biased, nationalistic reporting. "...[I]t has been the Fox News Channel, owned by [Rupert Murdoch's] News Corporation, that has emerged as the most-watched source of cable news by far, with anchors and commentators who skewer the mainstream media, disparage the French and flay anybody else who questions President Bush's war effort. ... Fox's formula had already proved there were huge ratings in opinionated news with an America-first flair.

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Main Source: 
New York Times, April 16, 2003
Topics: 
Right Wing
Iraq
Media

Live from the Middle East

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

Curious to know how the news is reported in Arab countries? Now you can see for yourself. Working with WorldlinkTV, the Internet Archive is archiving and providing non-commercial access to "Mosaic," a TV program that iMosaic selects, translates, and repackages news programs from the Middle East for a western audience.

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Main Source: 
http://www.worldlinktv.org/mosaic/
Topics: 
Journalism
International

Iraqis Get US TV

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

Iraqis with television reception can now turn on their sets and see a parade of new faces delivering the evening news: Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Jim Lehrer and Brit Hume. The news programming, called "Iraq and the World," is part of an ambitious effort that White House officials say will show Iraq what a free press looks like in a democracy. The U.S. backed news programming will also include stories by journalists working for Voice of America and Radio Sawa, which are also U.S. funded media.

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Main Source: 
Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2003
Topics: 
Iraq
Media

Who Needs Movies? We've Got the FOX War Channel.

Submitted by John Stauber on

"Nearly every military-related film
to reach theaters this year has been a box-office
disappointment, leaving some in Hollywood to question how
much the 24-hour news coverage of the Iraq invasion has
dimmed the public appetite for images of combat," and "some critics suggest that
moviegoers are staying away because they have plenty of
real-time war action already on cable and network news
programs. 'When television came on with 24-hour news channels, it
changed what we needed,' said Jeanine Basinger, chairman of

No
Main Source: 
New York Times, April 14, 2003
Topics: 
Right Wing
Iraq
Media

Americans Watching Their War on Cable, Not Networks

Submitted by John Stauber on

"With the most televised war in history winding down,
executives at TV news organizations are noticing one
startling detail in how Americans are watching the
coverage: viewers are increasingly tuning out the broadcast
networks' evening newscasts. ... The overall decline in the evening news programs' ratings,
coming at the same time as the three cable news networks
achieved gains of more than 300 percent, could be a
watershed moment in how Americans get their news on

No
Main Source: 
New York Times, April 14, 2003
Topics: 
Iraq
Media

Big Media Covers Bush Administration While Lobbying It

Submitted by Laura Miller on

While the giant US media networks are covering the US's invasion of Iraq, they are also heavily lobbying to get rid of restriction on the number of TV and radio stations they can own in one market.The Guardian reports media critics are alarmed by what they see as a "serious conflict of interest" concerning how the broadcast industry covers the Bush administration.

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Main Source: 
Guardian (UK), April 14, 2003
Topics: 
Corporations
Lobbying
Media

TV Wraps Itself in the Flag and Sells the War

Submitted by John Stauber on

Columnist Frank Rich writes, "There's almost nothing in the war, it seems, that cannot be exploited as a network promo. ... When Victoria Clarke at the Pentagon says Saddam is responsible for 'decades and decades and decades of torture and oppression the likes of which I think the world has not ever seen before,' no one on Fox or MSNBC is going to gainsay her by bringing up Hitler and Stalin.

No
Main Source: 
New York Times, April 13, 2003
Topics: 
Iraq
Ethics
Media
Rhetoric

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