Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: a special look at the state of the media in America. Every week on CounterSpin we talk mostly about what the media are getting wrong. But the big story inside the news industry is the collapse of the business itself. What are the implications for citizens? What can we do about it? And how concerned should we be about the failures of corporate owners that have done so little to promote good journalism in the first place? We'll talk about all that and more with our guests Robert McChesney and John Nichols, co-authors of [...]
Search Results for: Robert McChesney
Jun
01
2009
Fearing the Future
The corporate press makes the case for being saved
By Peter Hart
SIDEBARS: Proposed Cure: More of the Disease and Did Google Kill the Newspaper Star? Corporate media are in a state of severe business shock, it seems—layoffs at newspapers large and small, due to advertising revenue drying up and readers ceasing to pay for a printed copy of a newspaper that they can usually read for free online. The state of the press has generated an enormous amount of attention in the press itself, with journalists and pundits offering any number of plans to “save” dying newspapers. Congressional hearings on the state of the media suggest that lawmakers are worried about [...]
Apr
20
2009
Index: A
—————— Aarons, Leroy Beyond balance: thorough coverage of gay controversies is still the exception (Ott), 1-2/02;27 Abbas, Mahmoud Nixed signals [when Hamas hinted at peace, U.S. media didn't take the message] (Ackerman), 9-10/06;10 ABC. see also Nightline ABC does "something useful" [programs on poor children], 11-12/91;19 ABC erased protesters [at the Oscars], 6/99up;3 ABC News goes for the gold, 9/92;16 ABC's 1984 cover-up for the gipper, 3-4/90;15 ABC's antiwar "reality check": world news tonight minimizes support for withdrawal (Hart and Naureckas), 10/05up;4 ABC's military analyst calls for "excessive force": CSIS's cordesman advocates brutality against Palestinians (Ackerman), 1-2/01;23 ABC's one-color TV, [...]
Dec
12
2008
Bob McChesney on Tribune bankruptcy, Steve Early on card check
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The Tribune Company that owns the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times along with much else declared bankruptcy this week, just a year after new owner Sam Zell took over, with his notable lack of background or interest in newspapers. It sounds like workers will wind up with the short end of the stick but what does it mean in the bigger picture? Are capitalists losing interest in media and if so, what do we think about that? We'll talk with media scholar and author Bob McChesney about that story. Also on the show: [...]
Mar
01
2007
Letters to the Editor
PBS: A Guide to the Perplexed I write to provide a personal testimony to that portion of your study (Extra!, 9-10/06) on the lack of black experts invited to appear on PBS. I appeared on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour once about 12-14 years ago. For several years now, I have been frequently contacted by bookers at the NewsHour and interviewed preliminary to appearing on the show. However, for some reason, they always cancelled. This has happened so frequently that I concluded either my views were too progressive for the stories being presented, or that they had some sort of racial quota [...]
Mar
01
2006
Letters to the Editor
Anniversary Wishes Kudos on your 20th anniversary issue of Extra!, and thanks for all I have learned and benefited from. Best wishes for the next 20 years or until there is a free press doing its job in the USA. (If there was one thing missing in the issue, it might have been mention of Fred J. Cook, one of my favorite muckrakers.) Bob Goldberg Jericho, N.Y. . Thank you for the wonderful review of those 20 very important stories and how the media handled them. We need to have such reminders. Leonore Johnson Toledo, OH . I wish you [...]
Feb
01
2006
A Cornerstone of the Media Reform Movement
FAIR at 20
I remember the first time I heard of FAIR as if it were yesterday. I was a graduate student at the University of Washington in Seattle, and Alexander Cockburn was giving a speech on campus. This was 1986, and Cockburn was in his full glory; his main beat at the time was media criticism, and nobody did it better. The auditorium was packed to capacity with nearly 1,000 people. Before taking the podium, Cockburn turned the microphone over to Jeff Cohen, who was traveling around the nation to discuss the new group he was forming called Fairness & Accuracy In [...]
Apr
01
2005
Bob McChesney on FCC and Indecency, Daniel Ellsberg on Whistleblowers
Download MP3 This week on Counterspin: the FCC is on an anti-indecency crusade that’s already led to broadcasters self-censoring such controversial things as a nude lithograph on Antiques Roadshow. Who’s fighting back? And what happened to all those other issues of media reform we were talking about just last year? We’ll hear from author and media historian Bob McChesney on that story. Also on the show: Daniel Ellsberg’s leaking of the Pentagon papers 35 years ago exposed the US government’s cynicism and disregard for the human cost of the Vietnam War. Today Ellsberg joins us to talk about two important [...]
