Jeff Cohen
Jeff Cohen was associate professor of journalism and the director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, founder of the media watch group FAIR, and former board member of Progressive Democrats of America. In 2002, he was a producer and pundit at MSNBC (overseen by NBC News). He is the author of Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media - and a cofounder of the online action group, www.RootsAction.org. His website is here: http://jeffcohen.org
Articles by this author
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Views Friday, July 03, 2020 Politicians of Color Should Not Be Immune From Criticism To me, being an anti-racist activist means that one consistently challenges the structures of racist exclusion, exploitation, repression, and incarceration. It does not mean that one must defend or praise establishment politicians of color when their politics are an affront to our values and vision... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, June 17, 2020 Just Saying "Systemic Racism" Doesn't Expose Systemic Racism If you’ve been watching mainstream TV news programs lately, you’ve probably noticed that a number of corporate journalists—prodded by the marvelous protests against police violence—seem to have learned a new phrase, which they invoke regularly: “systemic racism.” That’s an improvement from a dozen... Read more |
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Views Monday, March 16, 2020 Socialists for Biden and the Power of Corporate Media It’s doubtful that Sunday night’s CNN debate shifted momentum in the presidential race currently favoring Joe Biden. The next few weeks offer the Bernie Sanders movement perhaps its last chance to win over—mostly through electronic means—Democratic primary voters. One voting bloc to focus on might... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, March 03, 2020 Did Chris Matthews Reveal That Democratic Establishment's Real Fear Is a Bernie Win? Mainstream news outlets keep pounding home the same message—that the "Democratic establishment" or "Democratic moderates" are worried sick that Bernie Sanders can't beat Trump. They worry about a Trump landslide, and a "down-ballot disaster" in Congressional races. Democratic insiders, we're told,... Read more |
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Views Thursday, February 13, 2020 When CNN Introduces Bernie-Bashers Only as 'Former,' CNN Is Lying To You CNN and CBS do it. NPR and PBS do it. They all do it. It’s a “gentleman’s” agreement between elite media and their establishment guests—a courtesy major news outlets bestow upon former officials who get to pontificate and editorialize about today’s events with no worry they’ll be identified by... Read more |
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Views Monday, January 20, 2020 7 Pointed Questions for Corporate Media About Their Anti-Progressive Biases We need to ask many serious questions of our nation's corporate media. Here are just a few. 1. Why don't you refer to our current healthcare system as a "corporate-run system" ? At Democratic presidential debates and elsewhere, network TV journalists have aggressively challenged the notion of "... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, December 10, 2019 Warren vs. Buttigieg Clash Offers Contrast with Bernie's Consistency In what is currently a four-way race for the Democratic nomination—featuring Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg—the recent war of words between Warren and Buttigieg has done little for them. But it has highlighted contrasts with Bernie Sanders. As Sen. Warren and “Mayor... Read more |
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Views Monday, September 23, 2019 Will Joe Biden Be a Rerun of 2016 Tragedy? You might ask what it takes to remember When you know that you’ve seen it before —Jackson Browne, “Lives in the Balance” Joe Biden is a throwback to an earlier time. Much of it could be called “the Clintonite era”— when Democratic presidential contenders openly cozied up to the wealthy by appearing... Read more |
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Views Monday, September 16, 2019 What George Carlin Taught Us About Media Propaganda by Omission: On Bernie Sanders, Medicare for All, and the Green New Deal In the old George Carlin joke, the TV sportscaster announces: “Here’s a partial score from the West Coast – Los Angeles 6.” For a brilliant comedian like Carlin—who skewered corporate power , class structure and political / media propaganda—that’s one of his more innocuous jokes. But it’s sharply... Read more |
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Views Saturday, August 17, 2019 Memo to Mainstream Journalists: Can the Phony Outrage; Bernie Is Right About Bias Mainstream journalists are having a ridiculous hissy fit over Sen. Bernie Sanders’ suggestion that there may be a connection between the owner of a news outlet and the content or biases of that outlet’s coverage. If Sanders had suggested that Rupert Murdoch’s ownership of Fox News impacts its... Read more |