27 Articles

Thursday, May 1, 2008
The Fire Bell in the Night and Our Real Terror
(2 comments) While We Debate Reverend Wright, The Economy Goes To Hell

Friday, December 28, 2007
The Day After: The World Reacts To The Murder of Benazir Bhutto
(1 comments) A day later, shock and fear still seem to rule in Pakistan in the aftermath of the killing of Benezir Bhutto. We do know, confirmed again today in the Washinhgton Post that the US government brokered her return. Were there any discussions of security arrangements? We don't know. Could this predictable killing have been prevented?

Monday, October 22, 2007
In The Age of the Superbugs: What Is The Remedy
killer germs, killer debt and economics-- not so different

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Fox Business; Can The Foxes Save the Hen House?
Fox's New Business News Channel Seeks To Rescue Corporate America

Monday, October 8, 2007
Can We Trust The New Jobs Report That Has Led to Rosy Forecasts?
(3 comments) There are questions about the credibility of the statistics on violence and conflicts coming out of Iraq, reported by Bush appointees. What's true of reporting from Iraq is also true about the job figures that the govt releases monthly gauging the health of the U.S. economy. Can they be trusted? And what about the reporting on them? This is a timely issue as Fox News gets ready to launch its heavily-hyped new Biz channel

Sunday, August 26, 2007
How Did We Miss the Signs of An Impending Crisis?
Why did the Markets and the Media Downplay the Subprime menace?

Friday, August 10, 2007
The Sub-Prime Crisis Is Really A "Sub-Crime" Crisis. It Is Time To Investigate and Prosecute This Scandal
Suddenly, after years of denial and inattention, the press has discovered what they call "the credit crisis." Vague words like "woes" are still being used to mask a financial calamity that some analysts are already calling an apocalypse, as lenders go under and the Stock Market melts downs. A French bank froze BILLIONS Thursday as the stock market tanked...

Saturday, June 2, 2007
Can Our Media Survive?
My media work has had it cycles almost like a business cycle. I was in radio at WBCN for 8 years, at ABC News for eight years, and so far with Media Channel for nearly 8 again. Are the media gods sending me a message?Is it time to hang up my scalpel?All of these stints are no small accomplishment considering how volatile the media world can be as well and how hostile it has become to our values.

Friday, May 25, 2007
Don't Be Surprised That Congress Capitulated On The War
Of course it is disappointing and disillusioning that the Congress passed the war financing bill giving the Decider in Chief another victory in his war with dissenting legislators who he knew, and we should have known, lack the votes and the guts to stop the war even with a protracted timeline"¦ Let me take that back, it is disillusioning only for those with illusions, for those who take poli-tricksters at their word...

Sunday, May 13, 2007
The Staple of Cable as Poster Child; O'Reilly as Father Coughlin Fascist Copycat
As Bill O'Reilly's pattern of hateful commentary goes unexamined within his own issue, few are asking why the cable industry which was launched with so much hope to offer more diversity has embodied so much of the worse on TV. In response to O'Reilly, CNN gave us not an alternative but a clone called Glenn Beck. And don't get me started on the many Neanderthals on MSNBC over the years.

Friday, May 4, 2007
Time for A Fox Hunt As Murdoch Targets The Wall Street Journal

Sunday, April 22, 2007
Reading Between the Lines to Find The Bottom Line
Thank you Harry Reid for acknowledging what the world press has been saying for more than a year, maybe longer: The war is lost.

Thursday, April 5, 2007
Memo To Our Media: How To Cover The Debt Crisis
(2 comments)

Friday, February 16, 2007
The Real Media Mantra: "Let's Make A Deal"
Deals, Deals, Deals. A culture of buying and selling dominates the world of information and even entertainment. Market logic long ago invaded and twisted media logic.

Sunday, January 28, 2007
Media Downplays Anti-War March Site
(4 comments)

Friday, January 5, 2007
Marching on Memphis: Revitalizing the Media Movement
(1 comments) It is the media that sets the agenda and limits it. It's the media that frames our issues, narrows our choices, deifies our icons and institutions, and pumps out the distractions that focus our attention and keeps us uninformed. If we are to revitalize our democracy, we need to make the media an issue and a target. We need to fight for a different type of news and a different story.

Monday, January 1, 2007
For the New Year: MediaChannel Honors The "We" That Care
Let us then honor those among us who do care, who are blogging writing op-eds, sending comments to editors and websites, digging out untold stories, making documentaries backing indymedia outlet and fighting back against the way show biz has infiltrated and nearly conquered news biz.

Monday, November 27, 2006
The 2006 Election: Another Nail in Democracy's Coffin?
Why are the mainstream media failing to cover the problems with the voting system in the US?

Tuesday, October 31, 2006
If You Are Against The War, Take This Quiz
The Iraq War is Bad Because:

Monday, September 4, 2006
911 Redux: Where is that decoder ring when we need it?
(1 comments) More than two towers collapsed on 911. Our democracy has fallen with them. In years past, in similar mysteries of history, it has taken more than 5 years for the truth to surface. In the weeks ahead, let us call for that part of the media that is least compromised to shed prior assumptions and safe conclusions and become open to investigating all the 9/11 narratives as some did finally about the phony claims of WMD's in Iraq.

Friday, August 18, 2006
Study Chess As A Guide to Watching Media
The hard-core partisan operatives take this game one nasty step further linking some negative in the news to the person or issue they want to demonize. The idea of ethical debate has long disappeared as show biz techniques dominates news biz.

Tuesday, August 8, 2006
Are the Words "Israel" and "Jews" Synonymous?
(1 comments)

Monday, July 17, 2006
Is It Time for a Third World War?
(2 comments) Has mainstream media devolved so far that world war is now considered a legitimate subject to advocate?

Saturday, July 1, 2006
An Idea for Media -- Cover the War Like a Math Class
Who will join me in building a War Clock to show the vast amounts of money being pissed away every second in Iraq? Wouldn't this be a feature that every TV newscast could update daily, just as they report on the movements of the stock market? All it would require is a simple graphic.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Dan Rather, R.I.P. Assasinated By The Media Company He Loved
(1 comments) For months he had wandered in the wilderness of CBS News headquarters with nothing to do, telling friends he knew more about what was on the menu at the cafeteria than he did about what the news organization he had once commanded was doing.

Friday, June 2, 2006
Media Crimes Sanitize War Crimes in Iraq
As events in Iraq continue to slip from bad to worse, the good news brigade is scrambling for new stories ("anything, give me anything") to shore up what's left of public support for a bloody war without end.

Sunday, May 7, 2006
The Media Shift from Them to Us
(1 comments) Mapping out the contours of the emerging media system is now on the agenda of consumers and creators in consciousness industries all over the world. Suddenly, many major media combines—perhaps still more outside America than in—have put aside their institutional arrogance and realized that their traditional approach is no longer selling.