Submitted by John Stauber on
CMD's SourceWatch project has earned kudos from the New York Times: "It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Newly released figures on newspaper sales show a decline of nearly five percent from a year ago, accelerating a trend that has been occurring since the 1990s.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
"Newspapers are in trouble for reasons that have almost nothing to do with newspaper journalism," writes Paul Farhi. "Even a paper stocked with the world's finest editorial minds wouldn't have a fighting chance against the economic and technological forces arrayed against the business." Farhi says newspapers "remain remarkably popular" but suffer from "the flight of classified advertisers, the deterioration of retail advertising and the indebtedness of newspaper owners." The Internet, he maintains, has expanded newspaper readership while sapping "newspapers' economic lifeblood.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, whose misleading stories about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction helped make the Bush administration's case for war, has joined Fox News as a contributor, where she will provide "
Submitted by Bob Burton on
Like many others, New York Times journalist Larry Rohter describes former Greenpeace activist-turned-industry consultant Patrick Moore as "the co-chairman of the Clean and Safe E
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Medical research conflicts of interest are in the news lately, thanks to recent congressional hearings by Senator Charles Grassley. But are journalists part of the problem?
Submitted by Bob Burton on
The Society for Environmental Journalists (SEJ), which promotes "excellence in environmental journalism," is gearing up for its annual conference in Roanoke, Virginia in mid-October.
One of my favorite critiques of our ad-saturated modern world is in "Infinite Jest," the epic novel by recently-departed author and essayist David Foster Wallace. In the novel's not-too-distant future, time itself has become a corporate marketing opportunity. There's the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar and the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. That's not to mention the Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office, Or Mobile, which is often abbreviated.
The novel's system of Subsidized Time is hilarious ... and you can almost imagine it really happening. At least corporate-sponsored years wouldn't present the disclosure problems of today's stealth ads -- marketing messages that masquerade as entertainment or news content.
The Center for Media and Democracy believes that all advertising should be as clearly announced as the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar. That's why we just filed a comment with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC is debating how its sponsorship identification rules apply to product placement, product integration and other types of "embedded advertising" relayed over television or radio stations.
In 2003, Commercial Alert urged the FCC to address product placement disclosure. "Advertisers can puff and tout, and use all the many tricks of their trade," the watchdog group wrote (pdf). "But they must not pretend that their ads are something else."
Especially, we would add, when that "something else" is news programming.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Efforts by the McCain/Palin campaign to keep reporters away from Sarah Palin have prompted journalists to threaten a boycott of Palin's photo shoots at the United Nations.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"A hospital complains about a reporter and pulls ads from the paper. The paper reassigns him. The paper -- offered three chances -- declines to deny that one caused the other," summarizes the Columbia Journalism Review. CJR was following up on a Wall Street Journal article about Carilion Health System, which is Roanoke, Virginia's sole healthcare provider.
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