It was all-too-familiar for those who recall the
run-up to the Iraq war when scary front-page New York Times stories
would be cited by Dick Cheney as proof that we needed to oust Saddam
Hussein ASAP.
As the country braces for another attempt at immigration reform on
Capitol Hill later this year, it's likely that we'll see plenty more of
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his supporters and his detractors in the media. But
if the past year is any indication, we may not hear from the people
that are most affected by the Maricopa County, Ariz. sheriff's
policies-those who have been racially profiled, regardless of their
immigration status.
Two US journalists are reported to have gone on trial in North Korea, on charges of committing "hostile acts".
Euna Lee, a Korean-American, and Laura Ling, a Chinese-American, were arrested on 17 March after allegedly crossing into North Korea from China.
The US has dismissed the charges as "baseless" and said the two women should be released immediately.
The trial comes amid growing tensions in the region following North Korea's recent nuclear and missile tests.
As a big healthcare policy debate looms once again in Washington, one
thing remains as certain as it was in 1993: A single-payer plan that
would provide government health insurance to everyone is off the media
agenda.
CNN senior medical correspondent
Elizabeth Cohen recently explained why healthcare "reform" is more
possible now than it was under the Clinton administration (3/5/09):
A media environment that tilts to the right is obscuring what President Obama stands for and closing off political options that should be part of the public discussion.
Yes, you read that correctly: If you doubt that there is a conservative inclination in the media, consider which arguments you hear regularly and which you don't. When Rush Limbaugh sneezes or Newt Gingrich tweets, their views ricochet from the Internet to cable television and into the traditional media. It is remarkable how successful they are in setting what passes for the news agenda.
Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow devoted much of their MSNBC shows last night to the assassination of George Tiller.
Maddow actually led with a headshot of Michael Griffin, the first abortion-doctor murderer, who killed Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola, Florida in 1993. She then moved on to copycat Shelley Shannon, who wrote letters of support for Griffin shortly before she shot George Tiller in both arms, an ominous foreboding of his murder 16 years later.
Last week's press coverage of Judge
Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court was gruesome in so many ways, as reporters
routinely fell down and failed to reflect even the most basic tenets of
journalism.
The president's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme
Court has come during a most awkward time in the history of U.S.
journalism, which many analysts claim is in serious decline, if not on
life support.
What her nomination clearly shows us is that what this nation needs is
more incisive journalism, not less. Yet, to be sure, the rise of
right-wing media, which include FOX News and virtually all the known
right-wing radio talk show hosts, is the antithesis of journalism.
Lost in all
of the hullabaloo over Jay Leno's final hours on the Tonight Show
was a rather telling interview on May 22 with NBC Nightly News anchor
and "journalist" Brian Williams (I put the word in quotation marks
because that's what Williams calls himself).
Kabuki is defined as a highly stylized form of classical Japanese
dance-drama in which actors often wear elaborate makeup and engage in
precisely dictated movements, a useful metaphor for the current
American political process which can't seem to break out of old
patterns even as the nation hurtles from crisis to crisis.
