A national media spotlight has focused on the battle between the Constitution of the United States and some religious fundamentalists who viewed themselves as angels of Montgomery. The removal of a big Ten Commandments monument from an Alabama courthouse on Wednesday was good news for people who prefer democracy to theocracy. But as the holy smoke clears, news outlets might want to consider the concepts that have endured on those chiseled tablets — in the context of the media industry itself. Before proceeding with this column, I wish to inform any litigious corporation among ye that I will be utilizing [...]
Search Results for: Barbara Reynolds
Jan
08
1997
Rare Voice for Peace Fired by Washington Post
The permissible spectrum of opinion in major newspapers seems to be narrowing. In July 1995, USA Today fired its only progressive columnist, Barbara Reynolds. Now the Washington Post has unceremoniously dumped its one consistent voice for peace and justice, Colman McCarthy, who has written for the paper since the late '60s. Like Reynolds, McCarthy represented a perspective little heard in mainstream media: that of the religious left. (If anything, it's even more silenced than the secular left.) He had a vastly different set of concerns from the typical Washington Post columnist. "What should be the moral purpose of writing," McCarthy [...]
Jan
01
1996
Powell Media Mania
After months of intense media hype about Colin Powell, pundit Joe Klein carried the prevalent spin to its dizzying conclusion. "The key to the race" for the presidency in 1996, Klein wrote (Newsweek, 11/13/95), is that "ideas are not important. Stature is everything." He added: "But if ideas don't matter, what does? Civility does." Mesmerized by Colin Powell's "stature" and "civility," and showing a remarkable disdain for "ideas," the news media pumped up Powellmania. As early as 1994, Newsweek (10/10/94) was asking the question "Can Colin Powell Save America?" and declaring him "the most respected figure in American public life." [...]
Jul
01
1992
For Media Decision-Makers, Urban Problems are Old News
At every home team baseball game, there are the same players, same ballpark, same uniforms, same rules. But the media would never conclude that coverage should shut down because there's nothing new. Somehow, though, the standard that would never be applied to sports is the rule of thumb for covering cities: Ho-hum, they're still poor -- old story, no news. The L.A. riot changed the rule, at least for a moment. The cities are newsworthy again, as the media rediscover the other America. But you might as well keep your fraying copies of the 1968 Kerner Report, because the White [...]
Jan
01
1991
'Arabs Stone Jewish Worshippers'...or Did They?
"Stones fell on Jews who...were simply praying peacefully at the Western Wall," reported Dean Reynolds on Nightline (10/9/90). His version coincided with nearly all accounts of the Oct. 8 killing of some 17 Palestinians outside the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. CBS Evening News showed stones, thrown by Palestinians, flying over the Wailing Wall. What they failed to show, and what few journalists reported, is that the plaza below was virtually empty. Investigative reporter Michael Emery (Village Voice, (11/13/90) analyzed three separate videotapes of the massacre to show that Israeli forces fired into the crowd before any rocks were thrown [...]
