Who gets to the top of the journalistic establishment probably has a lot to do with what they think of Margaret Thatcher's hard-right policies.
Apr
08
2013
To NYT, Nuclear Facts Become Iranian Claims
By 13 Comments
The New York Times treats Iran's right to enrich uranium as a "claim," to be challenged by anonymous U.S. officials.
Apr
08
2013
Cutting Social Security and Medicare? That's the 'Middle'
By 24 Comments
The new White House budget proposal is getting a lot of attention because it explicitly connects the Obama administration to an agenda that includes cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits. Some pundits see this as a way to appeal to the "middle." But does anyone– in the middle or anywhere else–really want to cut the safety net?
Apr
08
2013
WikiLeaks: Was Chavez Right About U.S. Meddling?
By 9 Comments
It's no secret that U.S. media loathed the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Much of that was purely political; sure, Chavez could have given shorter speeches and been nicer to his political opponents–but it's hard to imagine that would have mattered much to, say, the Washington Post editorial board. One thing that turned up constantly in Chavez coverage over the years was his suspicion that the United States government was looking to undermine his rule. As a Washington Post news article (1/10/13) put it: A central ideological pillar of Chavez's rule over 14 years has been to oppose Republican and [...]
Apr
05
2013
Keeping Yet Another Government Secret
By 10 Comments
The compelling interest in the public knowing that a high-ranking public official has taken part in highly controversial and perhaps even illegal actions, in the view of these news outlets, is apparently outweighed by their duty, as they see it, to keep the government's secrets.
Apr
04
2013
AP Ditches 'Illegal' Label
By 6 Comments
The Associated Press announced a change in their style guide: The wire service will no longer refer to "illegal immigrants," except in direct quotes. The change is a victory for activists who have called for years for journalists to stop using the term.
Apr
03
2013
Keystone Polling and an Oil Spill Time Machine
By 6 Comments
Reporting positive polling for the Keystone XL pipeline, USA Today reports, "The numbers come amid continuing efforts to clean up a major new oil spill in Arkansas." But "come amid" is another way of saying "entirely unrelated to."
Apr
03
2013
Misreporting Israel/Gaza Cease-Fire
By 15 Comments
An Israeli airstrike on Gaza yesterday is being reported as a breach of the cease-fire agreement that was reached after violence last November between the Israeli military and Hamas forces. But the new accounts are misleading: They give the impression that Israel hasn't regularly violated the agreement already.
Apr
01
2013
Everyone's Rich Again–Problem Solved!
By 12 Comments
Household wealth is on the rebound, USA Today reports–but mostly because of the stock market. Which means it means next to nothing to the vast majority of us.
Apr
01
2013
David Stockman's American Economic Horror Story
By 14 Comments
Former Reagan budget director David Stockman is outraged–outraged I tell you!–by the Federal Reserve increasing the money supply. In a lengthy op-ed on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Review (3/31/13), he condemns "the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve" with their "egregious flood of phony money" and "a radical, uncharted spree of money printing." The Fed's "panic-stricken melee of…money-printing," he writes, is part of "the single most shameful chapter in American financial history." For all this moral indignation, however, he never gets around to explaining what exactly is wrong about "printing money." It's certainly possible [...]
Mar
28
2013
USA Today Covers 'Lonely Battle' of Equality Opponents
By 5 Comments
"Outspent and lately out-hustled by highly organized gay rights organizations," USA Today reports, "opponents have struggled to get their story out." That's a curious premise, given that "their story" is the law of the land, and that's why we're talking about it in the first place.
Mar
25
2013
102 Years After Triangle Fire, Media Still Wonder How Workers Keep Dying
By 8 Comments
On the 102nd anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, Janine Jackson's article in the last issue of Extra! (3/13) is a sobering reminder that not that much has changed in the last century as far as worker safety is concerned: What should be done to prevent incidents like the January 26 fire at the Smart Fashion Export factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in which at least seven garment workers (three of them teenage girls) were killed, their escape impeded by a blocked exit and the absence of the most rudimentary fire safety equipment? The answer for many would be: whatever is [...]
Mar
25
2013
The Media Didn't Fail on Iraq; Iraq Just Showed We Have a Failed Media
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The headline on a story by Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi is "On Iraq, Journalists Didn't Fail. They Just Didn’t Succeed." To make that case, though, he has to redefine "failure" so far down that it's hardly possible to avoid failing.
