Rosa Brooks and Sheelah Kolhatkar on Hurricane Katrina
This week on CounterSpin: A discussion with Rosa Brooks, of the University of Virginia School of Law, about mainstream media’s ‘startling discovery’ of poor people.
Covering Katrina
One of the most noted trends in the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina has been the aggressive and critical tone some journalists have adopted towards the White House and Bush administration officials. A headline at the online magazine Slate read, “The Rebellion of the Talking Heads” (9/2/05). “Katrina Rekindles Adversarial Media” is how USA Today […]
World’s Worst Disasters Overlooked
Congo is the site of the world’s worst humanitarian emergency, according to U.N. emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland, the organization Doctors Without Borders and most relief professionals. But English-language media have given the crisis minimal attention, according to a study of humanitarian disaster coverage released on March 10. The study was commissioned by web-based Reuters […]
Ex-Presidents as Pitchmen
An Associated Press dispatch from a Thai fishing village summed up the media spin a few days ago: “Former President Bill Clinton’s voice trembled with emotion as he and George H.W. Bush put aside their once-bitter political rivalry…” Ever since his initial checked-out responses to the catastrophic tsunami two months ago drew worldwide derision, the […]
Media Bomb on TWA Crash
Two days after the crash of TWA Flight 800, the New York Times (7/19/96) ran a story headlined “Newspapers Were Wary This Time, and Didn’t Jump to Conclusions.” The Times argued that the memory of how much of the media rushed to blame Arabs after the Oklahoma City bombing (Extra!, 7-8/95) prevented any jumping to […]
Unreliable Sources: Slick Coverage of the Exxon Valdez Spill
Months after the Exxon Valdez spill, national media began to focus on the damage not done by Exxon’s blunder, heralding Big Oil’s efforts to preserve Alaska’s environment. Out of the jaws of catastrophe, Exxon snatched a news spin increasingly to its liking.
