Danny Schechter

Danny Schechter, 'The News Dissector', was an American television producer, independent filmmaker, blogger, and media critic. He wrote and spoke about many issues including apartheid, civil rights, economics, foreign policy, journalistic control and ethics, and medicine. He was the author of many books including "Media Wars: News at a Time of Terror," "Madiba A to Z: The Many Faces of Nelson Mandela," and "When News Lies: Media Complicity and the Iraq War." Schechter died of pancreatic cancer on March 19, 2015 in New York City.
Articles by this author
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Views Friday, March 20, 2015 Where Is the American Spring? (or Sunshine on a Cloudy Day) [ CD Editor's Note : While we mourn Thursday's passing of our friend and longtime contributor Danny Schechter , we celebrate his life and work today by offering this selection as a testimony to the power of his masterful ability to cut through current events with a wisdom honed by the past and an... Read more |
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Views Thursday, September 11, 2014 Oh, Ye Masters of War: Marking 9/11 Again With A New Dragon To Slay When will 9/9, the day of the release of the new iPhone and Watch, replace 9/11 in the consciousness of Americans who put consumption way ahead of civil activism? The wizards of Apple, who will soon have a device on the market to help you pay your bills (and take a micro slice), must be aware that... Read more |
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Views Friday, August 22, 2014 Outrage: On the Beheading of our Media Brother James Foley Outrage has been the response to reports that the Islamic State-ISIS maniacs beheaded an American journalist. Unlike American politicians who want us to be loved, in the media at least, these Islamic extremists only want to be feared. We had shock and awe; they have only shock. The killing by... Read more |
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Views Friday, August 15, 2014 Back In Iraq: We Only Want To Save You Welcome back to Iraq—complete with our ever-present WMD’s --- Weapons of Mass Deception. Suddenly, the country we never wanted to have to think about again is back in the news and on our military agenda. So, after a few denials that troops would not, never, and no way be sent, sure’nuff, U.S, boots... Read more |
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Views Thursday, July 17, 2014 Selling Israel’s War on Gaza There is an art to war and there is an art to selling war—to one’s own people and the world at large. Israel is a master on both tracks. When we speak of the “only democracy” in the Middle East, it is often forgotten—perhaps deliberately—that the country is run by a War or “Security” Cabinet. It is... Read more |
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Views Sunday, July 13, 2014 The World Cup Spilleth Over: As the Soccer Games End, Political Ones Begin The World Cup has spilleth over. With the FIFA spectacle about to pack up its goodies—most of their lucre has already been wired out of Brazil—it’s time for hype for the next global spectacle, as the “host” country now tries to cope with its financial losses, intensified social conflicts and... Read more |
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Views Friday, June 20, 2014 Back To Iraq and US 'Suicide' Foreign Policy New York, New York – I feel like an Iraq war veteran not because I served in that still ongoing war. No one thanked me for my service, and all praises be, I was not among those who were killed, wounded or traumatized on our side or theirs? I was a veteran in the same sense that I was, for years as... Read more |
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Views Friday, May 30, 2014 Where Is the American Spring? Where are you, Temptations, when I need you most? I needed that Motown spirit again to bolster me in this month of the missing American Spring of 2014. I am still barely singing along to their hit "My Girl:" I've got sunshine on a cloudy day When it's cold outside I've got the month of May The... Read more |
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Views Friday, May 16, 2014 Can We Stop America’s Surveillance State? With the publication of Glenn Greenwald’s new book on Edward Snowden and the NSA, the state surveillance issue is back in full force as if it ever went a way. Purloined formerly top-secret NSA documents are now there for the downloading, even as the calls for truth and privacy buttressed by... Read more |
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Views Friday, April 25, 2014 That “Iron Law” Of Oligarchy Is Back To Haunt Us The word Oligarchy has finally come home. For years, it was a term only used in connection with those big bad and sleazy Mafioso-type businessmen in Russia. Russia had Oligarchs; we didn’t. That became a big difference between the official narrative of what separated our land of the free and the... Read more |