In today's New York Times article, "Experts Worry as Population and Hunger Grow," there's some Green Revolution mythology propagated about how the policies "staved off famines affecting millions." As has been pointed out, though food production did increase, hunger actually increased as well just about everywhere affected by the Green Revolution; the reason the overall numbers showed hunger down was because China, as part of its own revolution including land reform, managed to reduce hunger dramatically. But the overall framing of the article is what bothers me more–the idea that it's "scientists and development experts" who are responsible for "feeding [...]
Oct
09
2009
NYT: Gaza War Worked
By 14 Comments
Isabel Kershner writes a piece in the New York Times (10/9/09) that starts out as a profile of an Israeli artist who makes flowers out of Qassam rocket pieces. The main point, though, is to discuss thechanged reality in southern Israel, thanks to the invasion of the Gaza Strip late last year that killed over 1,000 Palestinians: Israel said its three-week offensive was intended to change the reality in the south. Since January, when the military campaign ended, the rocket fire has significantly fallen off and residents here are trying to accustom themselves to a kind of normalcy amid the [...]
Oct
08
2009
NYT's Murky Cold War History
By 2 Comments
Kudos to the New York Times for publishing a front-page article (10/8/09) about the U.S. advisers and lobbyists who have been working (in one form or another) on behalf of the coup government in Honduras. But the piece glosses over the U.S. history in the region. Reporters Ginger Thompson and Ron Nixon write that the coup government "has also drawn support from several former high-ranking officials who were responsible for setting United States policy in Central America in the 1980s and '90s, when the region was struggling to break with the military dictatorships and guerrilla insurgencies that defined the cold [...]
Oct
07
2009
Working the Refs: The Right, the Media and ACORN
By 18 Comments
If you want a lesson in how right-wing pressure on corporate media works, look no further than the ACORN story. Right-wing talkshow hosts have targeted the community organizing group for years, primarily on charges of vote fraud. Then two conservative activists produced some embarrassing videos of ACORN workers at some local offices giving tax advice advice to a couple passing themselves off as a pimp and a prostitute. From there, the story turned to right-wing gloatingâ┚¬”Âand complaints about the media being too slow (and of course too liberal) to pick up on the right's anti-ACORN crusade. And some in the [...]
Oct
06
2009
FTC Fights the Blog Schwag Menace
The New York Times reported (10/6/09) that the Federal Trade Commission was planning to establish new rules for bloggers: The FTC said that beginning on December 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently…. For bloggers who review products, this means that the days of an unimpeded flow of giveaways may be over. More broadly, the move suggests that the government is intent on bringing to bear on the Internet the same sorts [...]
Sep
30
2009
NYT: Swerving to the Right Is a 'Middle-of-the-Road Approach'
By 1 Comment
In a story about the Senate Finance Committee voting down two amendments that would have added a public option to the committee's healthcare bill, New York Times reporters Robert Pear and Jackie Calmes (9/29/09) write, "The votes vindicated the middle-of-the-road approach taken by the committee chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana." The Times just had a poll that found 65 percent of respondents were in favor of a public option, with just 26 percent opposed. To call the approach favored by the rightmost one-quarter of public opinion "middle-of-the-road"–well, maybe someone ought to take away Pear and Calmes' car keys [...]
Sep
22
2009
New Developments in Honduras–Same Old Bad Media
By 16 Comments
Ousted President Manuel Zelaya hasreturned to Honduras, though not to office.Unfortunately, press accounts still manage to mangle the story behind his ouster, relying onthose who supported the coup to explain what happened. In today's New York Times (9/22/09): At the time of his removal, Mr. Zelaya was planning a nonbinding referendum that his opponents said would have been the first step toward allowing him to run for another term in office, which is forbidden under the Honduran constitution. Mr. Zelaya has denied any attempt to run for re-election. An Associated Press report appearing in today's USA Today (9/22/09) was much [...]
Sep
14
2009
TV Sports' 'Little, Teeny-Tiny, Super Cute White Hope'
By 3 Comments
Intern Katy Kelleher at the Jezebel.com blog (9/9/09) has made a worthy attempt at "unpacking all the different levels of sexism and racism that are operating subtly behind the scenes" in recent coverage of professional women's tennis. On the new stardom of relatively diminutive and white Melanie Oudin, Kelleher remarks that "her accomplishments are definitely praiseworthy, but there is something off about the way she is being celebrated": She has been called the "darling" of the U.S. Open, America's "sweetheart," a "pint-sized, freckled-faced blonde from Georgia," the "tiny little savior of women's tennis," everything it seems, save tennis' "Great White [...]
Sep
01
2009
Legal Transparency Another Victim of Ailing MSM
By 1 Comment
Adam Liptak of the New York Times (8/31/09) says that we can thank Riverside, California's Press-Enterprise for having "fought ferociously" in multiple Supreme Court battles ensuring "the press and the public have nearly an absolute constitutional right to attend jury selection in criminal cases." According to Liptak, "news organizations used to consider those kinds of lawsuits a matter of civic responsibility": "For the last four decades, maybe longer, citizens have been able to rely on small, medium and large news organizations, mostly newspapers, to fight their access battles on their behalf," said Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters [...]
Aug
28
2009
NYT Stands Up for the Little Insurance Company Employee
By 3 Comments
It's about time someone stood up for the poor insurance companies! The New York Times today delves into what it's like to be "Dealing With Being the Healthcare 'Villains,'" eliciting sad stories from nice people who work for big insurance companies and feel they're under attack. Times reporter Kevin Sack tells us, "Some workers said that unlike other contributors to the country's healthcare problems–the doctors who overprescribe, the hospitals that fail to control infection, the consumers who do not take care of themselves–insurance companies are faceless, impersonal and distant." Sack and the NYT to the rescue! Let's put a face [...]
