NewsTrust - Mainstream Media - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Good Riddance To Mainstream Media?

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

National Public Radio - By John Donvan - Nov. 12 (Opinion) - As newspapers go under, the network newscasts lose viewers and the mainstream media in general see more and more of their audience shift online, are we as a society better or worse off? Some argue that the diversity of voices available on the Internet to provide information and analysis makes for a better system. Others say a decline in traditional journalism means lower standards and fewer resources to investigate crucial stories. A panel of experts took on this topic Oct. 27 in an Intelligence Squared U.S. debate: John Hockenberry, Michael Wolff, Phil Bronstein, David Carr, Katrina vanden Heuvel. Three panelists argued for the motion "Good Riddance to Mainstream Media" and three against in an Oxford-style debate. Before the debate, the audience at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts voted 25 percent in favor of the motion and 50 percent against. Twenty-five percent was undecided. After the debate, 24 percent supported the motion "Good Riddance to Mainstream Media," while 68 percent opposed it and 8 percent remained undecided.

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Glenn Beck's Hotline to Nowhere

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Thomas Frank - Nov. 04 (Opinion) - Glenn Beck, the popular Fox News host, has a red telephone on his desk that never seems to ring. Every now and then, in a moment of acute frustration, he will pick it up and give the camera his trademark pleading-puppy look. What Mr. Beck wants to hear from the phone are answers, and he wants to hear them from the highest authority in the land: the phone, he says, is "a dedicated line right to the White House." And when Mr. Beck gets things wrong, he wants his antagonists on Pennsylvania Avenue to correct him. But "They don't call. They're not going to call." One of the specific answers Mr. Beck wanted, on one of the days I watched his program last week, had to do with White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, who has been caught on film quoting one of those Mao Zedong aphorisms that wouldn't look out of place on a motivational poster. She also remarked that Mao was one of her "favorite political philosophers," an honor the Chinese Communist shared with Mother Teresa. Obviously Ms. Dunn was yet another person who deserved to be added to the long list of radicals that Mr. Beck had uncovered within the government. What's more, no one would call that red phone to reassure Mr. Beck, to tell him that the Obama administration isn't crawling with traitors or to explain why his many nightmare scenarios will not actually come to pass.

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The White House’s war with Fox News

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New Yorker - By Louis Menand - Oct. 26 (Opinion) - In 2008, half the people who watched the Fox News Channel were over sixty-three, which is the oldest demographic in the cable-news business, and, according to a poll, the majority of the ones who watched the most strident programs, such as Sean Hannity’s and Bill O’Reilly’s shows, were men. All that chesty fulminating apparently functions as political Cialis. Fox News shows should probably carry a warning: Contact your doctor if you have rage lasting more than four hours.

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Fox wars

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Charles Krauthammer - Oct. 23 (Opinion) - While government can and should debate and criticize opposition voices, the current White House goes beyond that. It wants to delegitimize any significant dissent. The objective is no secret. White House aides openly told Politico that they're engaged in a deliberate campaign to marginalize and ostracize recalcitrants, from Fox to health insurers to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

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Why Fox News Is Un-American

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Jacob Weisberg - Oct. 18 (Opinion) - That Rupert Murdoch may tilt the news rightward more for commercial than ideological reasons is beside the point. What matters is the way that Fox's model has invaded the bloodstream of the American media. By showing that ideologically distorted news can drive ratings, Ailes has provoked his rivals at CNN and MSNBC to develop a variety of populist and ideological takes on the news. In this way, Fox hasn't just corrupted its own coverage. Its example has made all of cable news unpleasant and unreliable.

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Binyam Mohamed: full text of David Miliband's statement - Telegraph

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Telegraph - By David Miliband - Oct. 17 (Statement) - ''The Government is deeply disappointed by the judgment handed down today by the High Court which concludes that a summary of US intelligence material should be put into the public domain against their wishes. We will be appealing in the strongest possible terms.

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'Daily Show' Destroys CNN For Fact-Checking 'SNL' But Not Their Guests

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Daily Show - By Jon Stewart - Oct. 13 (Comedy News) - Jon Stewart began his show last night by skewering CNN for fact-checking a "Saturday Night Live" skit in which Fred Armisen (playing Barack Obama) claimed to have done "nothing" since taking office. In this hard-hitting report, CNN found that while many of the president's initiatives have not moved forward, he has in fact done "something" since taking office. Take that, comedy show.

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Why Declaring War on Fox News Could Be a Mistake for Obama

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Magazine - By Chris Rovzar - Oct. 13 (Opinion) - ... if Team Obama ignores Fox, it just gives the network's talent the chance to further caricature him as a socialist, foreign, effete, America-hating Other. It isn't a racist portrayal, necessarily, but is certainly one that gives actual racists a lot of comfort. Not countering that will help Fox viewers conveniently forget that Obama is intelligent and well spoken. George Bush, who certainly wasn't the latter, came across as human and likable in interviews. It was one of his greatest strengths (and for critics, one of his most confounding attributes).

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Fox: a news source in name only

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Leonard Pitts Jr. - Oct. 04 (Opinion) - Fox is in a class by itself. In its epidemic inaccuracy, its ongoing disregard for basic journalistic standards of fairness, its demagogic appeals and its blatantly ideological promotions it is, indeed, unique — a news source in name only. That's not just an opinion: a 2003 study found Fox viewers more likely to be misinformed than those who get their news elsewhere.

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The Public Editor: Tuning in Too Late

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Clark Hoyt - Sep. 27 (Opinion) - By stressing the politics, the article irritated more readers. “A suspicious person might see an attempt to deflect criticism of Acorn by highlighting how those pesky conservatives are at it again,” said Albert Smith of Chatham, N.J.

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The Rise of the Professional Blogger

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Benjamin Carlson - Sep. 13 (Opinion) - Today, the romantic notion that solitary, untamed bloggers are running the Web is more fantasy than fact—nearly as apocryphal as old myths about stoic Western sheriffs killing 11 outlaws with six bullets.

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Cheney for President

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By James Taranto - Aug. 31 (Opinion) - As the Obama administration moves toward prosecuting intelligence agents for allegedly overzealous questioning of terrorism in the months following the 9/11 attacks, the Washington Post delivers a timely reminder of why those methods were thought necessary.

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Video: Dick Cheney calls Eric Holder's interrogation investigation political

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Fox News - By Chris Wallace - Aug. 31 (Interview) - WALLACE: So even these cases where they went beyond the specific legal authorization, you're OK with it. CHENEY: I am.

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The Washington Post supports edgy journalism. Until it doesn't.

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Jack Shafer - Aug. 07 (Opinion) - When Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli canceled the Post's Web video feature "Mouthpiece Theater" on Wednesday, his goal was simple: mollify those who were outraged by the July 31 episode that suggested that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton be served a bottle of Mad Bitch beer.

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How to Woo the TV Critics? With Insults.

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Lisa de Moraes - Jul. 29 (Entertainment) - PASADENA, Calif., July 29 Jeff Dunham Show: Funny as a Block of [Expletive] Wood Not my headline -- it's Dunham's, along with a slew of others he fed to TV critics who'd been giving him withering looks at Summer TV Press Tour 2009. Comic/ventriloquist Dunham is a monster ratings magnet for Comedy Central. His Christmas special, with 6.6 million viewers viewing, was the network's most watched program -- ever.

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How much editorial control do newspaper proprietors really exert?

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Roy Greenlade - Jul. 27 (Editorial) - The Desmond libel trial highlighted the tricky relationship between a newspaper owner and its editor. But how much editorial control do proprietors really exert? Roy Greenslade, who worked under Robert Maxwell, reports

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Costs and Compassion

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Jul. 24 (Opinion) - The talking heads on cable TV panned President Obama’s Wednesday press conference. You see, he didn’t offer a lot of folksy anecdotes. Shame on them. The health care system is in crisis. The fate of America’s middle class hangs in the balance. And

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Walter Cronkite Was the Last of the Towering Anchormen

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Howard Kurtz - Jul. 18 (Opinion) - It's been 28 years since Walter Cronkite last told America that was the way it is, more than enough time for him to fade from our collective consciousness. The fact that he didn't speaks volumes not just about him, but also about an era when an anchor could presume to tell the country -- without contradiction from bloggers, Twitterers and other carping critics -- that what he had just presented was indeed a definitive picture of reality.

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The Stumbles That Led to an Ethics Blunder

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Andrew Alexander - Jul. 12 (Opinion) - The Washington Post's ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record "salons" was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions. Publisher Katharine Weymouth and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli have now taken full responsibility for what was envisioned as a series of 11 intimate dinners to discuss public policy issues. For a fee of up to $25,000, underwriters were guaranteed a seat at the table with lawmakers, administration officials, think tank experts, business leaders and the heads of associations. Promotional materials said Weymouth, Brauchli and at least one Post reporter would serve as "Hosts and Discussion Leaders" for an evening of spirited but civil dialogue.

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10 Questions for Bill Keller

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Time - Jul. 12 (Interview) - Why do you think the press gave the Bush Administration a free pass on the misleading statements it made to get us into the war in Iraq? Randal Davis, Portland, Ore. It was partly the insatiable desire for scoops people in the Administration were feeding about the potential threat in Iraq. But a lot of it was just that we floated along with the conventional wisdom, the worst enemy of journalism. Bearing in mind the popularity and competitive nature of online journalism, do you think print media still have a future? Chukwunwikezarramu Okumephuna, London I think this talk about the death of newspapers is a little exaggerated. While online is clearly more and more the future, print has a lot of life left in it. You recently appeared as part of a Daily Show segment that treated the paper as a comical anachronism. How do you respond to those who seem eager for newspapers to die out? Tommy Giglio, Chicago Well, that's the last time I try to be a good sport. Even my wife told me that I looked faintly ridiculous, and she was trying to make me feel better. Among the people who would miss us most would be the wise-guy pundits and scriptwriters for satirical TV shows, because they riff on the news we produce.

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The Washington Post's boneheaded—and aborted—plan to lobby for lobbyists.

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Jack Shafer - Jul. 05 (Opinion) - Mike Allen's early-morning report in Politico that the Washington Post intended to sell access to its newsroom to lobbyists forced the paper's publisher and editor to back down from their plan at record speed. Allen reported that the Post had circulated a flier offering "lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to 'those powerful few': Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and—at first—even the paper's own reporters and editors." The quoted cost of sponsorship for these "Washington Post Salons," the first of which Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth would host at her home on July 21, ranged from $25,000 to $250,000.

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A Letter to Our Readers

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Katharine Weymouth - Jul. 05 (Opinion) - I want to apologize for a planned new venture that went off track and for any cause we may have given you to doubt our independence and integrity. A flier distributed last week suggested that we were selling access to power brokers in Washington through dinners that were to take place at my home. The flier was not approved by me or newsroom editors, and it did not accurately reflect what we had in mind. But let me be clear: The flier was not the only problem. Our mistake was to suggest that we would hold and participate in an off-the-record dinner with journalists and power brokers paid for by a sponsor. We will not organize such events. As publisher it is my job to ensure that we adhere to standards that are consistent with our integrity as a news organization. Last week, I let you, and the organization, down. The Washington Post remains committed, now and always, to the highest standards of journalistic integrity. Nothing is more important to us than that, and nothing will shake that commitment.

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A Publisher Stumbles Publicly at the Post

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David Carr - Jul. 04 (Opinion) - Mrs. Graham bestowed legitimacy (Richard M. Nixon never made the cut, even as president). Ms. Weymouth decided to sell it, with her paper’s editorial integrity apparently thrown in as a parting gift.

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Reinventing Newsweek: A New Strategy for Print, Online

Mon, 18 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Kathleen Deveny - May. 18 (Editorial) - ....Because while there is no shortage of information out there, we believe there is a scarcity of insight...."Good journalism is expensive to produce, and we need to make our business profitable in order to continue producing it. "Repairing NEWSWEEK the business is more than an intellectual challenge," says Tom Ascheim, NEWSWEEK's chief executive, who arrived in 2007 from Nickelodeon. "As corny as it sounds, I really believe that our republic will not thrive without healthy, self-sufficient journalism."

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Thomas L. Friedman and the high cost of speaking

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By James Rainey - May. 13 (Opinion) - Without the Chronicle's dynamic reporting duo, the Bay Area air district would not be getting back its $75,000, money that could help cities expand bike paths or plant more trees. That's proof enough for me that we can start the disclosure on these speaking engagements right here and now.

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