The Saddam hanging videos have raised key questions about the changing power of circulated images. The brutality of the incident is emphasised in the dirty grain and jerky focus of the mobile phone images. the release of the second video apparently posted on a pro-baathist news site and apparently showing the ugly state of Saddam’s […]
New York Times reports that Joe Maguire, one of two editors in charge of markets coverage at Reuters, has apparently been fired because his new book on right wing commentator Anne Coulter: Brainless: The Lies and Lunacy of Ann Coulter. A clear case where a commitment to objectivity principles quash argued critique.
On Wednesday, Mr. Maguire […]
Editor and Publisher summarises the none to glowing early reviews of Bob Woodward’s Deep Throat book, The Secret Man:
One of the leading political writers of today, Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times, declares: “If Bob Woodward were in journalism school, his professor might have handed back his new book, ‘The Secret Man,’ as […]
Thanks to Matt at Kairosnews for pointing to this set of alternative maps of the US elections which extends the idea of the purple map that I posted yesterday.
Barry Ritholtz has posted a series of election maps and graphics on his blogs.
The most disturbing one is the comparison of the old free states versus slave […]
US Graphic designer Jeff Culver has come up with a far more informative electoral map than those published by mainstream media.
It is an interesting example of how the graphic devices and rhetorical frames that we use actually construct very different narratives. While the election maps which show the blue and red states (say this example […]
Everyone’s reporting on the values issue and Karl Rove’s masterly strategy. No one yet seems to know quite what it means. The NYT sums up the numbers succinctly:
It was not a landslide, or a re-alignment, or even a seismic shock. But it was decisive, and it is impossible to read President Bush’s re-election with larger […]
Here’s one of the more percpetive comments about Rathergate (I continue to use the stupid term for the pure hysteria of it!) that I’ve come across. From David Shaw at the LA Times:
I think he wasn’t as good — as careful, as thorough, as demanding — for several reasons. The most important may be that […]
Howard Kurtz Media Notes points to this article in Salon which reports that CBS has shelved a detailed report on how the Bush administration either lied or was extremely credulous in its assessment of Saddam’s nuclear capacities. The irony here is that the report center’s around the forged documents that the Bush administration believed showed […]
The Revealer points to this FAIR ACTION ALERT on an NBC news report about liberals wanting to ban the bible:
On the September 24 NBC Nightly News, Tom Brokaw gave this brief report:
“The Republican National Committee now has acknowledged sending mass mailings to two states that say liberals want to ban the Bible. Republican Party officials […]
Atrios at Eschaton points to this article on Editor and Publisher:
Conditions in Iraq appear to be deteriorating so badly that CIA officials are now leaking to reporters left and right, signaling a new dynamic in press coverage of the war. Columnist Robert Novak noted this on Monday in a column titled, “Is CIA at War […]
Another really interesting comment about Rathergate New York Region > NYC: We Have Met the News, and It Is Us” href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/nyregion/24nyc.html”>from Clyde Haberman in The New York Times:
Given how obvious it has long been that Mr. Bush ducked Vietnam duty, much as Dick Cheney ducked the Vietnam-era draft, you can’t help but wonder […]
Watergate ace Carl Bernstein in a wide ranging critique of contemporary media raises the real questions about Rathergate.
Hurrying to be first can cause problems, he said. For example, had more serious questions been asked about the reports in the CBS story about President George W. Bush’s service in the National Guard, the story might have […]
Some very frightening points made by Eric Alterman in his latest Nation columns.
In this week’s column he gives a very useful summary of some of the new information that has come to light in Bob Woodward’s Plan of Attack. One of the key points is the influence of VP Cheney. As Alterman puts it:
For foreign […]
This is a copy of an article I recently published on the John Marsden defamation tiral and mythological images mobalised in the media coverage of the trial.
Recent scholarship has explored the mythical function of news reporting. A diverse set of studies has shown that when news takes mythic shape it can perform both a community-building […]
The super bowl breast business was an amazingly revealing moment, JJ’s right breast being the least of it.
First the language.
Jackson said in her statement that the decision to do a “costume reveal” was made after the rehearsals. Timberlake blamed it all on a “wardrobe malfunction” and Jackson’s publicist said there was “some kind of collapse […]
I’ve neglected this blog for a couple of months now. Mainly because I am trying to finish off my Master’s thesis.
But I want to get back into the discipline of regular posting. So to begin here’s an excerpt from a talk I gave recently about media naratives of same sex marriage. I’ll post some more […]
Howard Kurtz’s latest Washington Post Media Notes is a fascinating reflection on the almost impossible task of keeping up with the rate of scandal blistering the media landscape.
I’m in the business of connecting the dots.
And it’s been raining media dots lately. In fact, I’m getting bleary-eyed just trying to keep up.
First the big story […]
The Hutton inquiry is a source of endless fascination. Rarely have the cogs of government been exposed in such grand detail. Even now with the hearing of evidence complete strange new details emerge.
Today’s Guardian reports on a bizarre tug of war between the the Cabinet Office’s ceremonial secretariat and Hutton over the publication of […]
The press system the occupying forces allow the Iraqis is far from free. American Prospect’s Alex Gourevitch reports.
“On the one hand, the American presence in Iraq was intended to nurture basic democratic liberties. On the other, as an occupying power, the Americans needed to root out the Baathist regime and eradicate support for its […]
Three very different stories from today’s newspapers show the difficulties that journalists have negotiating “facts”.
To begin on a light note a German constitutional court has finally resolved the tiff over whether the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder, dies his hair - he doesn’t. The court said the original suggestion, which came from a political consultant and […]
