Media

Jeffrey Chester and Gary Larson have drafted a "plan on behalf of a more democratic media system, a collective effort to ensure that alternative, independent voices will still be heard over the growing din of conglomerate media culture. " In the Internet age, they say, "The sad irony is that never before have we had such communications power at our disposal, in the form of new digital technologies that allow any of us to be producers as well as consumers of media content.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, coverage of hard news skyrocketed and ratings went off the charts. Since then, however, "the networks are slipping back into their bad, old habits," which authors Leonard Downie and Robert Kaiser describe as "the shallowness, the obsessive attention to celebrities, and the pandering to advertisers that has crept in to news gathering during the last decade."

A new study by Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR) shows that 92 percent of all U.S. sources interviewed on the nightly network news in 2001 were white, 85 percent were male and, where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican. Big business, too, was overrepresented. In a year in which the country lost 2.4 million jobs, corporate representatives appeared about 35 times more frequently than did union representatives.

The news media is generally failing to report the historic verdict against the FBI in the 1990 bombing of non-violent environmental activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney. That would not surprise Judi, were she alive today. In her book Timber Wars she described how the news media eagerly parroted the FBI's lies and deception, casting Bari and fellow bomb victim Cherney as terrorists. "The news quickly went national, with newspapers across the country screaming about Earth First!ers carrying bombs. It was the only time we ever made the front page of the New York Times.