NewsTrust - All Rated Stories

Open Letter To Stephen Colbert

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Media Channel - By Danny Schechter - Jun. 15 (Comment) - The Pentagon was delighted and this effort was consistent with the “AAU” mantra that governs news coverage (AAU stands for all about us. ) The Iraqi people and their suffering were no where to be seen on The Colbert Report, just as they are usually invisible on the news.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

MoveOn Is No Movement, It's A Powerful Democratic Marketing And Fundraising Tool

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Channel - By John Stauber - Jul. 31 (Opinion) - I have praise for MoveOn in what they have accomplished, but their limitations are becoming more and more glaring and in the case of the continued Democratic funding of the war in Iraq, problematic.

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The Trial of Al Jazeera

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Channel - Jun. 24 (News Report) - Should Al Jazeera English be banned from American air waves?

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average - 6 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Fire Bell In The Night And Our Real Terror

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Channel - By Danny Schechter - May. 01 (Opinion) - AP: "A man upset over thousands of dollars in fees owed to a condominium association brandished a gun and took two association employees hostage before he was killed by a SWAT team, authorities said. Deputies 'were screaming at him to put the gun down, but he didn't seem to be paying attention,' said Ross Torman, 30, a resident who watched the standoff from his nearby balcony. 'He just put that gun right to his head and that's when they began to shoot.'" The Housing Panic blog reaches into history to remind us of an uprising that saw martial law imposed in Iowa in 1933 after "a mob of 150 farmers dragged Circuit Judge Charles C. Bradley from the bench, manhandled the 60-year-old jurist and threatened to lynch him unless he promised not to sign further foreclosure orders." Don't think never again. If it has come to this, it can come to that.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.5 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Code Blue In The Financial E.R.: Trauma Time

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Channel - Apr. 14 (Opinion) - We are not used to reading such scary analyses about the fragility of the economic order. Later, Fed officials admitted that they acted to save the system, not just one bank, fearing the collapse of any big major financial institution could bring others down given all the ways the banks are entangled with each other

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What Is "The Change We Can Believe In?"

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Media Channel - By Danny Schechter - Feb. 08 (News Analysis) - Who is in office is not necessarily who is in power!

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Investigative Journalism Project Reveals Problem at Core of Mainstream Journalism

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Media Channel - Feb. 07 (News Analysis) - Pro Publica, an initiative launched last month in the United States to help revitalize investigative journalism, is a great idea trapped by the worst aspects of the best instincts in contemporary corporate commercial journalism. The project reminds us of important values at the core of the craft of journalism, but also exposes the common political confusions of mainstream journalists that so often undermine their best efforts.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average - 8 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Edward Bernays and the Assassination of Democracy

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Media Channel - Feb. 01 (Opinion) - 'He was manipulating the public in ways that were undemocratic'

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Network News's Perfect Storm

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Media Channel - By Marc Kusnetz - Jan. 31 (News Analysis) - Paradoxically, television is trying to remain relevant by appropriating the techniques of the computer, while ignoring its unique qualities. In so doing, television news is delegitimizing itself. It deepens the problem by insisting that all stories must have an arc--a beginning, a middle, and an end that is clear and, if possible, have a touch of inevitability, as great stories often do. The problem here lies in the difference between literature and journalism.

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People & Power: Death of the Dollar - Part 1

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Media Channel - Dec. 19 (Opinion) - A country whose standard of living is decreasing cannot be said to be 'making progress' nor will it be a 'superpower'.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.3 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Green Media Catches a Buzz

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 08:51:54 -0700

Media Channel - By Michael Hedges - Oct. 15 (News Analysis) - Green media is moving up that 'long tail.' While environmental issues may not beat the major stories in the popular press - Brittney Spears, Kate Middleton and Paris Hilton - editors are keenly aware that climate change, energy and development are related. Listeners, viewers and readers can smell the news. Editors follow.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Is Keith Olbermann the Next Edward R. Murrow?

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:44:34 -0700

The Nation - By Marvin Kitman - Sep. 26 (Special Report) - What the evening news shows need is less "objectivity" and more analysis. The problem with objective journalism is that it doesn't exist and never did. Molly Ivins disposed of the objectivity question for all time when she observed in 1993, "The fact is that I am a 49-year-old white female, a college-educated Texan. All of that affects the way I see the world. There's no way in hell that I'm going to see anything the same way that a 15-year-old black high school dropout does. We all see the world from where we stand. Anybody who's ever interviewed five eyewitnesses to an automobile accident knows there's no such thing as objectivity."... In short, what CBS (and all the others) need is a new Ed Murrow. Good news! There's already one out there on the launchpad who has demonstrated his qualifications. I'm talking about Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. He has the journalistic chops and the mind, heart, instincts and courage. Olbermann, who anchors a one-hour nightly news show on MSNBC called Countdown With Keith Olbermann, closes his show every night by saying "1,547th [for instance] day since Mission Accomplished in Iraq," an hommage to Ted Koppel's "Iran Hostage" coverage, which evolved into Koppel's late-night ABC news show Nightline (the MSNBC show was originally Countdown: Iraq). Then Olbermann throws his crumpled script at the camera, which shatters, a simulated digital effect (something Koppel never did).

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average - 8 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

They Know More Than They Tell: Reporters in Iraq

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 12:53:09 -0700

Media Channel - By Niqash. - Aug. 09 (Opinion) - The real problem, for an Iraqi journalist working inside Iraq today, is the fact that very little has resulted in terms of security for those journalists who still remain, even after the relatively large number of journalists who have fallen in the past four years. It is painful that the brutal losses suffered by the Iraqi press are not just about some comrades losing their careers, but also about the imminent collapse of the already fragile media in the new Iraq after the fall of Saddam's regime. Media openness and freedom of expression, in addition to the establishment of electoral democracy and the expansion of social space to civil societies that would motivate opinion-making mechanisms, increasing the amount of participation and placing rules upon the administration of differences; media thrives on such values and participates in their creation, but they are certainly doomed to attrition by the hegemony of armed violence as a means of expression, currently the most influential tool in Iraq today, more powerful than any words that are said.

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FORUM: Citizen Journalism 2.0

Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:21:26 -0700

Media Channel - By Mr. Oh of Ohmynews.com - Jun. 29 (Statement) - Last year, OhmyNews International Citizen Reporters' Forum proposed the three main stakeholders in citizen journalism -- or user-created content at the greater level. They are citizen reporters, readers and editors. How can practitioners in citizen journalism balance user participation and editorial accountability? How can citizen journalism foster cross-cultural exchanges and contribute to the vision of a global village as envisioned by Marshall McLuhan? How can we sustain citizen journalism by identifying the right business models?

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Silent Coup At AlJazeera?

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 07:10:05 -0700

Media Channel - By Friends of AlJazeera - Jun. 06 (Opinion) - The Qatari Government seems to be shifting away from the "hands off" approach that it had towards AlJazeera over the last 10 years and now looks like it will exert more influence over the channel. Journalists at AlJazeera are speculating that this could be a huge blow to the editorial independence that made AlJazeera the most watched news channel in the region.

NewsTrust Rating: 2.0 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Pro-US Coup At Al Jazeera?

Fri, 18 May 2007 10:40:25 -0700

Media Channel - By Danny Schechter - May. 18 (News Analysis) - "Google News is carrying a report by Italy's Ukunet that there has been a shakeup at the Al Jazeera network in Doha, Qatar with the removal of Managing Director Wadah Khanfer and the current Executive Board and control shifted to Qatar's former Ambassador to Washington who is described as a close friend of leading US politicians. I am relaying this Friday morning report and hope to find more information to confirm the story. If true, this may mean the end of AlJazeera's journalistic independence and current orientation. Was The Bush Administration behind it?"

NewsTrust Rating: 3.2 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Unintended blogsequences

Tue, 15 May 2007 11:19:25 -0700

Media Channel - May. 15 (Opinion) - Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done. -- Andy Rooney Technorati, a search engine that tracks blogs on the "World Live Web," has some interesting numbers. At the time of this writing, Technorati was tracking 80.3 million blogs, noting that there are over 175,000 new blogs -- just blogs -- every single day. To break it down even further, bloggers put up 1.6 million posts per day, about 18 updates every second. The obvious upside of blogging (and internet publishing, in general) is the advancement of public discourse democratization. But, with every technological advance, there's a Faustian bargain. Of course, it's hard to argue with Technorati's appreciation of blog power. "Blogs are powerful because they allow millions of people to easily publish and share their ideas, and millions more to read and respond. They engage the writer and reader in an open conversation, and are shifting the Internet paradigm as we know it," according to their Web site.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.4 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Judge Dread

Fri, 11 May 2007 11:59:09 -0700

Media Channel - May. 11 (News Analysis) - On Monday afternoon -- a few hours after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) upheld his 2005 triumph in a libel case against the Boston Herald -- Superior Court judge Ernest Murphy took the microphone at a celebratory press conference and waxed dramatic about the ruling. "I believe that this decision is a clarion call for the media to understand that the independence of the judiciary is fundamental to the democratic process," Murphy announced. The press, he continued, should be "sensitive" when it covers the courts. A few minutes later, Suffolk University law professor Michael Avery, who'd argued Murphy's case before the SJC, offered a decidedly different gloss. "The decision as made in this case," Avery said, "should cause no alarm to anybody in the media who's concerned about his or her ability to engage in vigorous criticism of the government." So, which is it?

NewsTrust Rating: 3.6 average - 5 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

World Press Freedom

Mon, 07 May 2007 07:47:52 -0700

Media Channel - By Rory O'Connor, Danny Schechter - May. 07 (Opinion) - "It's fun to bash the media...but it's also important to recognize that there are quality journalists out there doing their best to bring us the news we need."

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Olbermann On Fire

Mon, 07 May 2007 12:24:35 -0700

Media Channel - May. 07 (News Analysis) - In an angry commentary on April 25, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann accused Rudolph Giuliani of using the language of Osama bin Laden with "the same chilling nonchalance of the madman" to argue that Republicans would keep Americans safer than Democrats from terror. Eight days later, Olbermann hosted MSNBC's coverage of the first debate among Republican candidates for president. Olbermann's popularity and evolving image as an idealogue has led NBC News to stretch traditional notions of journalistic objectivity. The danger for MSNBC is provoking the same anger among Republicans that Democrats feel toward Fox News Channel.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.4 average - 6 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

MC Rove And Da Media Dogg Pound

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 07:00:20 -0700

Media Channel - By Rory O'Connor, Danny Schechter - Apr. 02 (Opinion) - "They call this crap the news!"

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Fox Attacks: Black America

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 10:42:36 -0700

Media Channel - By Color of Change.org - Mar. 15 (Other) - http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/03/15/fox-attacks-black-america/

NewsTrust Rating: 3.2 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer