Washington Post columnist and political reporter David Broder died on Wednesday, March 9. Broder was an enormously influential figure in Beltway media circles--"the best political reporter of his generations," wrote his Post colleague Dan Balz (3/10/11). ABC's George Stephanopoulos declared (3/9/11) that "for generations of policy makers, journalists and political junkies, Broder was the gold standard." Broder's work was frequently criticized, something that the Washington Post actually noted in an editorial honoring him (3/10/11): Mr. Broder was often called "the Dean," a position that is now likely to go unfilled in the Washington press corps. His detractors used the term [...]
Search Results for: John F. Sugg
Mar
11
2011
Remembering David Broder
Despite non-ideological reputation, he pushed political culture to the right
Mar
01
2011
11th Annual Fear & Favor Report
How power shapes the news
U.S. media consumers are used to magazines where ads outnumber stories, to on-air hosts who contractually consume brand-name drinks, to “consideration provided by” this and “brought to you by” that. But when it comes to the news, many still maintain at least the kernel of expectation that reports in the paper or on TV have more to do with journalistic judgment than with anything else. The Fear & Favor report is about some of the things that come between that image and reality on a daily basis. From pushy advertisers to heavy-handed owners and local power players, there are a [...]
Nov
12
2010
William Greider on G-20 & trade, Ali Gharib on Iran & Wikileaks
By CounterSpin
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Coverage of the G-20 summit in Seoul is squarely focused on trade deals and U.S. relations with China. But is the whole discussion of globalization, China and trade missing the point? William Greider makes that case in a new piece in the Nation magazine. He'll join us to talk about it. Also on CounterSpin today: There's growing talk of a U.S. military attack on Iran. And some elite journalists, who think they have found evidence of Iranian interference in Iraq, are doing their part to beat war drums. If the script sounds familiar, that's [...]
Oct
01
2010
Exposés Just Excuses to Boost Afghan War
Missing the point of Rolling Stone, WikiLeaks revelations
By Peter Hart
Over the course of two months, the war in Afghanistan lost its commanding general over an embarrassing article in Rolling Stone magazine (6/22/10), and the website WikiLeaks (7/25/10) posted tens of thousands of classified documents that offered a stark reminder—if one were needed—of the brutal, futile nature of the U.S.-led war. But while both revelations were heavily covered in corporate media, they were mostly seen as opportunities to shore up support for the current Afghanistan policy rather than to debate it. Michael Hastings' Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal revealed a striking pessimism in the U.S. military about the [...]
Aug
27
2010
Pratap Chatterjee on Task Force 373, Timothy Karr on net neutrality
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The WikiLeaks Afghan War Diaries prompted waves of media coverage, though much of that amounted to "move on, there's nothing to see here." But digging into the documents might reveal more about the Afghan War than we knew—like the existence of something called Task Force 373, set up to capture or kill specific al Qaeda or Taliban figures. What does it really do, though, and where does it fit in with what we know about U.S. war policy? Journalist Pratap Chatterjee will join us to talk about that. Also on CounterSpin today: A few [...]
Aug
20
2010
Hannah Gurman on Iraq, Norman Solomon on Petraeus and Afghanistan
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: One war is ending, while the other is the subject of a major PR blitz. Right on schedule, we're told, Operation Iraqi Freedom is winding down, with live TV coverage relaying the images of the final U.S. combat brigades leaving the country. The caveats to the story of the "end" of the war are abundant—tens of thousands of troops and private contractors remain, and some are already suggesting they'll be there longer than we've been told. So how does a war that isn't really ending actually end? Hannah Gurman wrote about the Orwellian state [...]
