August 7 – In the wake of an August 1 expose in the New York Times, an agreement reportedly reached by executives at the parent companies of Fox News Channel and MSNBC to rein in the networks’ two stars’ criticism of each other seems to have fallen apart. The behind-the-scenes deal-making, though, still illustrates the corrosive effect on media of corporate ownership.
Archive for August, 2009
FAIR: Did Parent Company General Electric Stifle MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann?
Friday, August 7th, 2009Did CNN Newscaster Ann Curry’s Twitter Today Mislead Her Followers That Unemployment in the Country Was “9.4 percent”?
Friday, August 7th, 2009Her stats, from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, don’t take into account people who have given up hope and are no longer looking.
Statement by Sandy Close, Executive Director of Pacific New Service/New America Media, on the Iranian Detainment of NAM Journalist Shane Bauer, His Girlfriend and Another Friend
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009
I first met Shane Bauer in the Fall of 2008 when he visited the office of New America Media before leaving for the Middle East. Shane planned to travel there with his girlfriend Sarah, where the two of them would study Arabic and deepen their understanding of the cultures of the region.
As a student, artist-photographer and linguist, Shane proposed writing for New America Media and Pacific News Service, its mothership, and sending us photographs while traveling. We expressed strong interest and have posted more than a dozen well-written articles by Shane, often accompanied by photographs.
Shane’s dispatches have been enlightening and follow in the long tradition of American travelers developing into accomplished correspondents. His fluency in Arabic and his writing and photography skills enable him to provide a valuable lens into what ordinary people are thinking and saying in the Arab world. We consider Shane to be a gifted young correspondent.
Shane emailed me in late July to say that he planned a one-week trip to Iraqi Kurdistan in order to get a feel for the region. He was interested in observing and covering the Kurdish elections and proposed writing an article for us about them. We were awaiting his coverage when we learned that he, his girlfriend and another friend had been detained by Iranian authorities in northern Iraq while reportedly on a hiking trip.
We support Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s call for information about the three missing Americans, and look forward to a positive resolution of the situation and their safe return.
“Unemployed Woman Sues College For Tuition” — AP Story
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009Woman Sues College
…. over her inability to get a job after graduation.The reader comments on this piece are interesting.
How do Hunter students feel about this?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/02/unemployed-woman-sues-col_n_249544.html
Posted on Hunter-L, the College listserv, by the Chair of the anthropology department.
I posted a response:
Keith Olbermann & Bill O’Reilly Nose-to-Nose
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009Honestly This Time: The Final WORD on Obama-Gates-Crowley
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009Two sentences provide clarity about the driving forces of this particular race drama: If there was a teachable moment in this incident, it could be found in how some powerful white people well beyond Cambridge responded to it. That reaction is merely the latest example of how the inexorable transformation of America into a white-minority country in some 30 years — by 2042 in the latest Census Bureau estimate — is causing serious jitters, if not panic, in some white establishments.”
— Frank Rich, New York Times, Column, August 2, 2009
Click here for his column
CNN Quashes Watchdog Group’s Ad Campaign
Thursday, August 6th, 2009CNN announced on Tuesday that it would not air ads produced by the media watchdog group, Media Matters. The group’s ads pressure CNN to direct Lou Dobbs away from further questioning the legitimacy of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate.
The host’s now infamous “birther conspiracy†broadcasts struck a chord with racist paranoiacs around the country when he insisted that Obama produce his original birth certificate for the sake of what Dobbs terms “transparency.†(more…)
Tags:Barack, birther, CNN, Jeffery Toobin, Jon Klein, Lou Dobbs, Media Matters, Obama, Overtone Magazine, Richard Cohen, White House
Posted in I Didn't See This on the Evening News (A Work in Progress), Journalism, News/Commentary/Opinion | Comments Closed