Chris Matthews: Testosterone Overdose?
“Has a country ever won a war by avoiding enemy casualties? Isn’t that what we’re doing? We’re blowing up bridges that are dark and buildings that are empty,”
Legitimate Targets?
In their zeal to present the war against Yugoslavia as a moral crusade, members of the media sometimes slipped into the logic of ethnic cleansing.
‘I’d Take Them Out With Sex’
Journalists Trivialize Howard Stern’s Advocacy of Rape as ‘Insensitivity’
Redefining Diplomacy
On March 23, U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke was in Belgrade to deliver a final ultimatum to Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic: Sign the Rambouillet plan—the document that emerged from the three-month-long talks in France between the Yugoslavian government, ethnic Albanians and the five-nation Contact Group—or be bombed. Milosevic’s government refused to ratify the plan, which envisioned […]
‘Perp Walks’ and Ride-Alongs
The “perp walk,” in which recent arrestees are paraded for news cameras, and the “ride along,” in which media accompany cops on the job, are standard features of mainstream media’s reporting on crime. But both practices, which involve close relationships between reporters and police, have been challenged by courts in recent months. Media aren’t […]
What Reporters Knew About Kosovo Talks—But Didn’t Tell
—New evidence has emerged confirming that the U.S. deliberately set out to thwart the Rambouillet peace talks in France in order to provide a “trigger” for NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia. Furthermore, correspondents from major American news organizations reportedly knew about this plan to stymie the Kosovo peace talks, but did not inform their readers or […]
NATO’s ‘Astonishing’ Radioactive Weapons
On April 1, ABC‘s Nightline did a segment that criticized the one-sided coverage of the war—on Serbian TV. Reviewing supposedly absurd claims, ABC aired what it described as “this astonishing claim” from a Belgrade news account: They even use radioactive weapons…which are forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Astonishing, perhaps—but is it true? The fact is, […]
The Media After Monica
“Feeding frenzy” was a term that kept coming up whenever media critics dissected the collective behavior of the television press during the never-ending year of Monica news. You saw the pictures: camera crews surrounding grand-jury witnesses, hurling questions, often blocking their way to get a closer shot. Many witnesses needed escorts to get through what […]
The Art of the Con
A good prank attempts to shed light on an issue and to create social change. It is the manipulation of ideas and emotions in order to shift focus onto otherwise hidden agendas or social justices.
Something Stinks
For the Times of London and the Times of New York, it is still quite proper to say the natives stink—provided they are French. When French soap merchants followed the lead of ours to persuade their public that it had B.O., the Timeses were happy to confirm it. The one in London (11/21/98) whinnied: “It’s […]
A Sex-Free Scandal
The current scandal involving Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s long-term association with a white supremacist hate group, the Council of Conservative Citizens, arose almost by accident. Its emergence as a major story is the result of the dogged reporting of one Washington Post reporter and a handful of mostly African-American columnists, with help from independent […]
Don’t Believe Everything You Read:
The same day the Washington Post was hyperventilating about the U.N. being excessively candid with its own reporter (1/7/99), the New York Times advanced the UNSCOM-spying story with a front-page article by Tim Weiner. Weiner’s piece went further than the previous day’s story in the Post, reporting that “American spies had worked undercover on teams […]
Affirmative Action Coverage Ignores Women—and Discrimination
Mainstream news media are shortchanging the public—especially women—in their coverage of affirmative action. Consideration of affirmative action’s impact and meaning for women of all colors is largely missing from news stories, and women are severely underrepresented on opinion pages. Worse—with a few exceptions, major media are reporting the debate on affirmative action without reference to […]
The Ever-Present Yet Nonexistent Poor
As a poverty specialist for the conservative Heritage Foundation, Robert Rector is one of the right-wing media machine’s most prolific pundits. In 1996, the year of the welfare reform debate, he was cited in media outlets an average of more than 15 times a month. Rector also feeds a vast network of right-wing talkshow hosts […]
‘Terrorists’ Attack Ski Lodges, Not Doctors
Two stories involving politically motivated crimes received substantial—and substantially different—media attention in October. On October 23, Dr. Barnett Slepian of Buffalo, New York, was shot by a sniper, apparently because the obstetrician was one of the few doctors in his area who performed abortions. On October 19, several unoccupied buildings at a Vail, Colorado, ski […]
Monica Mania
The New York Times (9/4/98) sent Washington reporter Lizette Alvarez to Manchester, New Hampshire, to cover a series of campaign speeches by House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt (D.-Mo.). Early in the article, headlined “Gephardt Trumpets ’98 Agenda of His Party,” Alvarez noted that “the word ‘scandal’ or the name Monica Lewinsky did not drop […]
Doublethink on the Editorial Page
If a newspaper has a political agenda, presumably it would be most visible on its editorial page. Examination of editorials in some of the most prominent dailies—the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today—on a range of economic and social issues shows that they tend to articulate the same […]
Inside the 700 Club
Many people have heard of Pat Robertson, but few can say they know him, even among his limited number of close friends. To the general public he is an enigma—a Baptist minister, a televangelist, a would-be kingmaker behind the Republican Party, the founder of the powerful Christian Coalition, a businessman, a broadcast mogul, a defender […]
‘Are You Sure You Want to Ruin Your Career?’
Examining the aftermath of Webb’s “Dark Alliance” series makes clear that investigative reporting—particularly reporting that approaches politically sensitive agencies such as the CIA—can cost a reporter dearly.
Fast Track: Media Misperceptions
Which is more noteworthy: representatives voting with the opinions of their constituents, or against them?
