Polluters’ PBS Penance
The following are a few of the companies who have used the PBS penance to say “I’m sorry” to those who are touchy about the environment.
Post-Mortem on Nicaragua’s Election
Not everyone was unprepared for the Nicaraguan election results. In his 1985 book Turning the Tide, Noam Chomsky predicted that the US would not overthrow the Sandinistas through an invasion as long as “the dream that there might be a more just and decent society remains.” “A wiser strategy,” Chomsky wrote, is first to kill […]
Swallowing Hokum in Central America
During the height of the civil rights movement, Southern authorities frequently reacted to the bombing of a black church or a civil rights leader’s home by blaming the act on the Movement: “The Negroes did it themselves. It’s a stunt to win sympathy.” While the innuendo that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have fire-bombed his […]
The Washington Post: The Establishment’s Paper
Don’t get too far from the establishment. —Walter Lippmann to Katharine Graham File Lippmann’s remark under the category of superfluous advice. Graham and the company of which she is “chairman”—she lists herself in the D.C. phone book as “Graham, Philip L. Mrs.”—have never entertained a thought of straying from the establishment. In 1933, when Graham’s […]
Human Rights and the Media
A wave of exhilaration surged through the crowd when the first contingent of Chinese workers joined student hunger strikers in Tiananmen Square. Three thousand students started their protest in May, two days before Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrived for historic talks with China’s rulers. By the time Gorbachev left Beijing, mass demonstrations had spread to […]
Beyond Belief: The Press and the Holocaust
The facts of the Holocaust were in US newspapers during the war years, but published in such a tentative way as to minimize the impact on US readers.
NBC: The GE Broadcasting Co.
This is the second in a series on media corporations by the editor of Left Business Observer.
Public TV Censorship Under Fire
The PBS affiliate owned by the City of New Tork, WNYC-TV, has become the target of protests over its suppression of two national programs–the weekly investigative news show the Kwitny Report, and the documentary Days of Rage.
George Bush: Not a Wimp, But a Rough Rider
For those Americans still clueless that a virile, active president has replaced an aging enfeebled one, the Bush administration has kindly and gently choreographed a remarkable outdoors routine for the nation’s press photographers
Hypocrisy on Terrorism
No sooner was it established that Pan Am Flight 103 had been destroyed by a bomb than the American press went into its predictable ritual. Journalists peppered President Reagan and President-elect Bush with all the usual questions: How can we bring terrorists to justice? Will we retaliate against any country harboring those responsible for bombing […]
The Corporatization of Public TV
“Look Mom, Star Trek.” “Hey, I thought you said you were going to watch public TV.” “This is public TV!” “Then how come I just saw Tony the Tiger on an ad?” Mom’s wrong. First of all, that was no ad, it was “enhanced underwriting,” a plug for a corporate contributor. Second, Junior’s as likely […]
Election Post-Mortem
If the presidential campaign often resembled a circus, television was its distorting mirror—turning election realities upside down. The winning candidate carried around four names—George Herbert Walker Bush—degrees from elite schools Andover Academy and Yale, residences in many states. Yet on TV he ran as Joe Sixpack, while his opponent spent most of the campaign denying […]
The GOP/Nazi Connection
On September 8, 1988, Washington Jewish Week (with a circulation of 20,000) disclosed that Vice President George Bush had appointed an ethnic coalition for his campaign that included a number of outspoken antisemites with Nazi and fascist affiliations. The article prompted the resignation of six leaders of the GOP’s ethnic outreach division. Although the resignations […]
George Bush: The Teflon Candidate
As the media dominate the presidential campaign, the pattern of 1980 and 1984 seems to be repeating itself. Instead of analyzing and exposing George Bush’s tarnished record, the US press has coated the vice president with the same teflon which protected Ronald Reagan for the past eight years. This is especially true with respect to […]
US Media Promote Salvadoran Army Disinformation
The daily barrage of army and government disinformation has become a key component of the eight-year civil war in El Salvador.
Election Myths ’88
As the presidential campaign marches on, certain media themes have become as stale and repetitious as the candidates’ stump speeches. Extra! looks at some of the more familiar frames, examining what reporters choose to highlight and what they ignore. Democratic Party ‘Captured by Special Interests’ In traditional political parlance, the term “special interests” referred to […]
Images of Arabs on the Screen
It is ironic that as Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip are being beaten, arrested and killed, CBS TV chose to portray a Palestinian as a terrorist and not as a victim of terror. The recent CBS special (1/10/88) Terrorist on Trial: The United States vs. Salim Ajami perpetuates the media myth: […]
Murdoch and the Corporate Media Clan
Rupert Murdoch has become a major American power in newspapers, magazines, films and books, thanks not to his crudities, but to a process created and supported by the most respectable newspaper and broadcast organizations in the country.
Social Security, the Candidates and the Media
A curious phenomenon of the presidential campaign has been that the least popular Democratic candidate, Bruce Babbitt, has drawn the most favorable media treatment, while the most popular political demand has received the least favorable media treatment. The New York Times (1/20/88) noted raves for Babbitt in Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles […]
Nicaragua and the US Media
How is the world ruled and led into war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe those lies when they see them in print. –Austrian scholar Karl Kraus In March 1982, Congressman David Bonior (D.-Mich.) spoke fervently about Reagan’s Nicaragua policy on the House floor, warning of “a highly orchestrated propaganda effort by the administration, […]
