Recent comments

  • Reply to: Public Radio's Advertising Creep   18 years 1 month ago

    The Detroit Free Press reports on [http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060317/NEWS05/603170429 an extreme case of advertiser pressure] at public radio stations:

    Prosecutors charged three former employees of Michigan Public Media with illegally accepting golf club memberships, Persian rugs, airline tickets and massages in exchange for on-air considerations at the state's top public radio station. Each of the men -- current WDET-FM general manager Michael Coleman, Jeremy Nordquist and Justin Ebright -- was charged by Washtenaw County prosecutors in Ann Arbor with embezzlement of under $20,000 while working at Michigan Public Media-controlled WUOM-FM (91.7).

  • Reply to: Mad Cows and Mad Policies   18 years 1 month ago

    Animals for consumption are raised in horrendous condi-
    tions that it is surprising their human captors have
    not suffered from more than "Mad Cow Disease." Humane
    conditions would go a long way toward reducing animal
    borne diseases such as this.

  • Reply to: The Sorry State of U.S. News Media   18 years 1 month ago

    This reminds me of all those entertainment news shows like Extra, Access Hollywoow, ET, ect and no matter what day you watch them they all have the same story on the same day, regardless if it's a big news story or little story. You would think they would at least shuffle it up a bit.

  • Reply to: Regime Change Part III: Iran   18 years 1 month ago

    A [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/13/AR2006031301761.html follow-up article] in the Washington Post reports that Iranian activists have warned "that mere announcement of the U.S. program endangers human rights advocates by tainting them as American agents":

    In a case that advocates fear is directly linked to Bush's announcement, the government has jailed two Iranians who traveled outside the country to attend what was billed as a series of workshops on human rights. Two others who attended were interrogated for three days. ...

    "This is something we all know, that a way of dealing with human rights activists is to claim they have secret relations with foreign powers," said [human rights lawyer Abdolfattah] Soltani, who co-founded a human rights defense group with Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi. "This very much limits our actions. It is very dangerous to our society."

  • Reply to: The Sorry State of U.S. News Media   18 years 1 month ago

    [http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6315346.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP Broadcasting & Cable reports] that the Project for Excellence in Journalism study called local TV news "the most thinly sourced and shallowly reported of any medium studied other than local radio":

    The study found that "roughly half of all the news hole on local TV news that was not given over to weather, traffic and sports was devoted to crime and accidents. Stories about local institutions, government, infrastructure, education and more were generally relegated to brief anchor reads in the middle of the newscast," and war news got less time than lifestyle stories.

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