Media

One Nation Under Fox

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

There's something "incredibly creepy" about Fox TV mogul Roger Ailes, writes Michael Wolff: "He looks the way you imagine the man behind the curtain looking: That is, he doesn't care about how he looks (which is, as it happens, gray and corpulent). He understands it's all manipulation." Wolff examines the techniques that Ailes has used to turn his right-wing network into a ratings phenomenon: "Fox is not really about politics (CNN, with its antiseptic beltway p.o.v., is arguably more about politics than Fox). It certainly isn't arguing a consistent right-wing case.

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Main Source: 
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/columns/medialife/n_8080//index.h…
Topics: 
Right Wing
Media

Colombian Journalist Gets Applause, But No Coverage

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

"Colombian journalist Ignacio Gomez told a roomful of America's most influential journalists Tuesday how Washington-supported Colombian president Alvaro Uribe is connected to drug traffickers and how U.S. military trainers helped organize a massacre in his country," reports Lucy Komisar.

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Main Source: 
American Reporter, December 2, 2002
Topics: 
Journalism
Ethics
Human Rights
International

The Perils of Court Reporting

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

Bob Woodward's reporting on the Watergate story made him a journalistic legend, but his reliance on secret sources troubles Richard Blow. "Among journalists who care about nagging details like accuracy, there will also be the inevitable handwringing over Woodward's dubious reporting methods, the fact that he writes from a fly-on-the-wall perspective yet never identifies his sources," Blow writes.

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Main Source: 
TomPaine.com, December 2, 2002
Topics: 
Journalism
Secrecy

Koppel Says Yes to Military Censorship

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

"If and when a press corps of 3000 to 5000 lands with the U.S. military in Iraq, should they be prohibited from broadcasting the war live, using their videophones and satellite dishes? Yes, under some circumstances, says Nightline anchor Ted Koppel."

No
Main Source: 
Village Voice, November 20-26, 2002
Topics: 
Iraq
Journalism
Secrecy
U.S. Government

Hype in Health Reporting

Submitted by Laura Miller on

"Do reporters know that so much medical news is actually unpaid advertising?" writes Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Policy Research for Women & Families. "The most effective industry influence is so well-hidden that many reporters and producers are totally unaware of it. The role of pharmaceutical companies and other health care industry interests in shaping news coverage of medical products and treatment is as invisible as it is pervasive."

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Main Source: 
AlterNet.org, November 25, 2002
Topics: 
Journalism
Ethics
Health
Marketing

Stock Exchange Mulls Forcing Media to Reveal Conflicts

Submitted by John Stauber on

"After the bubble burst, the [New York Stock Exchange] regulators decided that it was not nice for an analyst to tout a stock without mentioning that he owned the stock or that his employer was the company's investment banker. So they ruled that such conflicts had to be disclosed. Fair enough. But to whom? Many investors learn analysts' opinions not from reading brokerage reports but from news media reports. So the Big Board said that the firms had to make sure that broadcasters who quoted the analysts had to pass on the disclosure.

No
Main Source: 
New York Times, November 22, 2002
Topics: 
Journalism
Corporations
Ethics

Muzzle the Old Folks

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

If you happen to sound like you're older than 54, don't even bother calling in to any of the talk shows on Chicago's WLS-AM radio station. Michael Packer, operations manager of the ABC-owned news/talk station, sent a confidential memo to staffers ordering them to screen out "any old sounding callers" no matter what they have to say. (Maybe they're worried that old people can still remember a time when radio stations carried something other than rantings from right-wing gasbags.)

No
Main Source: 
Chicago Sun-Times, November 21, 2002
Topics: 
Media

"Scientific" Journal's Industry Ties

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has joined a number of other health and science leaders in questioning the integrity of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology (RTP), a "seemingly independent scientific journal" that hides "its authors' and editors' extensive financial ties to tobacco, chemical, pharmaceutical, and other industries. ... [M]any RTP papers are written by scientists from industry labs or by industry-paid lawyers and lobbyists.

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Main Source: 
CSPI News Release, November 19, 2002
Topics: 
Journalism
Corporations
Ethics
Science

That's Not Right Wing Bias, That's 'Fair & Balanced'!

Submitted by John Stauber on

Alessandra Stanley writes in today's New York Times: "The revelation that Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News, the self-proclaimed fair and balanced news channel, secretly gave advice to the White House after the Sept. 11 attacks was less shocking than it was liberating -- a little like the moment in 1985 when an ailing Rock Hudson finally explained that he had AIDS. Ever since Mr. Ailes changed jobs from Republican strategist to news executive, he has demanded to be treated as an unbiased journalist, not a conservative spokesman.

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Main Source: 
New York Times, November 19, 2002
Topics: 
Right Wing
Corporations
Ethics
Media

Bob Woodward's PR Ideal

Submitted by Laura Miller on

"The model for me for someone in the public relations business is, to a certain extent, the U.S. military," journalist and Watergate legend Bob Woodward said in a keynote address to the Public Relation's Society of America's National Capital Chapter in Washington, D.C. PRSA's Strategist reports how Woodward, assistant managing editor of the Washington Post, defines the model PR professional. "The best sources for straight information were people in the U.S.

No
Main Source: 
PR Strategist, November 2002
Topics: 
Journalism
U.S. Government
War / Peace

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