Media

Brent and A.B are going at it over Tucker. But the battle may really be about something more fundamental.

Brent, you know I am in your camp on the issue debates — whether Iraq, Bush-Cheney or this collection of neocon candidates on the Republican side — but I find it hard to play the rightist game of censorship, or press-bashing. Read more...

I will have a longer and more detailed response to the views expressed by my colleague here, A.B. Stoddard, about the Tucker Carlson issue.

For now, first, this past July 6 I wrote a post on this site discussing a letter I had written to the Board of Directors of General Electric about their political treatment on several cable shows that, in my view, disrespected large numbers of progressive Americans in ways that were highly disadvantageous from a media, content and ratings point of view to MSNBC. Read more...

Earlier this week fellow blogger Brent Budowsky bagged on my friend Tucker Carlson in his post, upset because Tucker said Al Gore and George W. Bush have much in common and because he had shown contempt for Gore in his "sneering" comments. Budowsky's post, of course, invited the adolescent pile-on about Tucker, where readers called him everything from tool to weasel to twerp.  Read more...

It had to be the most preposterous segment in the history of cable television to witness Tucker Carlson say Al Gore and George Bush have much in common.

Granted, Tucker’s comments were sandwiched between the expressions of sneering contempt that he holds for Gore. Sadly, the guests on the show either lacked the intellectual firepower or minimal courage necessary to rebut this incredibly bizarre and laughable analysis from the host. Read more...

"I don't get it." We all know someone who says that with a blank expression just after we've said something funny. Truth be known we know scads of them.

We could put just about anyone in politics in that category, and certainly those of us who cover the campaigns.

Case in point: Mike Huckabee has a new commercial out that features an endorsement by super-macho symbol Chuck Norris. Read more...

Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson and Dennis Kucinich have close to a hundred years of significant government experience and very significant things to say about the campaign, but have been treated in these debates like the opposition to Vladimir Putin are treated in the state-controlled Russian media.

It is a disgrace and a sham and a disrespect not only to those candidates but to the very idea of an informed citizenry choosing our next leader in a democratic election. Read more...

Remember Mikey? He's that kid in the cereal commercial who "hates everything." Well, Mikey would make a good reporter.

We are supposed to be professional skeptics, challenging any advocate's self-serving, one-sided promotion. As the journalism cliche goes, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." As a result what we do can be mighty inconvenient.

Which explains why there are so many efforts to sabotage the media. Everywhere we turn in and around government, we have people selling something. And selling it in deceptive ways. Read more...

It's an article of faith that it's only the adversaries of the United States who engage in propaganda. We have been conditioned to believe that the bad guys hide the truth and misrepresent it. It's a big part of what makes them bad. No matter how far you go back, our enemies always had this insidious "Propaganda Machine." That was one thing that set us apart as the good guys. So we were told.

So what do we call the control and manipulation of today? What do we call the White House censorship of congressional testimony by a government expert who wanted to report on the public health implications of global warming? What do we call the Pentagon's orders to block news media from showing the caskets returning from Iraq? Read more...

It is probably safe to say that the evangelicals who are in Washington this weekend for their values gathering won't be engaging in the usual out-of-town conventioneer barhopping and carousing.

First all all, what happens here definitely does not stay here. And what'll be happening with the white protestants is aimed at the millions who live elsewhere, since it is safe to say most of them do live elsewhere in that place we all know as “The Heartland.” Read more...

Once upon a time, even though there were metal detectors, guns in schools were a rare occurrence. Now it seems that hardly a week goes by without a shooting. Asa Coon recently shot people at his high school before ending his own life, there was a shooting at Delaware State several weeks back, and in Pennsylvania police apprehended a boy who seemed to have been planning a "Columbine" incident at his high school. Read more...