Submitted by Bob Burton on
After being deported by the Australian government, U.S. peace activist Scott Parkin has ridiculed claims against him in The Australian. "If I am such a threat, why have the FBI not even phoned me since my return from Australia to follow up [Australian intelligence]'s silly allegations? ...
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
The San Francisco Examiner and Independent "agreed Friday to label as advertising a regular restaurant news column the newspapers had used to reward advertisers and solicit ads from eating establishments." Previously, ad salesperson George Habit had written food columns identified only as "special to the Examiner" or "Independent Newspapers." Habit admitted, "I use the column as an initia
Submitted by Bob Burton on
The Knight Professor of Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University, Edward Wasserman, worries that the PR industry is doing a better job of attracting "the next generation of idealists" than journalism.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
After notifying "foreign Web sites that his newspaper colleagues had been instructed not to commemorate the then-pending 15th anniversary of China's 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists," Chinese journalist Shi Tao received a 10-year prison sentence. According to Reporters Without Borders, the court that sentenced Mr. Shi "relied partly on evidence provided by a Hong Kong subsidiary of Internet company Yahoo Inc." The government of President Hu Jintao has repeatedly targeted the media.
A popular Texas bumper sticker reads: "The only mad cow in America is Oprah." Not anymore, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced that the first confirmed home-grown case of mad cow is a Texas beef cow.
As Sheldon Rampton and I report in Mad Cow USA, the United States failed to take the measures necessary to stop the spread of the fatal dementia dubbed mad cow disease. However, a successful PR campaign by industry and government has, to this day, fooled most of the press and the public into believing that all necessary steps were taken long ago. A major part of the effort to spin and intimidate media coverage involved suing Oprah Winfrey under the Texas Food Disparagement Act, after her 1996 program examining mad cow risks in America.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"While some charge that embedded reporters are often too protective of the military, [U.S. Representative] Sylvestre Reyes (D-Texas) feels they are dangerous loose cannons, and says it's time to consider revoking their privileges," reports Editor and Publisher. During a House Armed Services Committee discussion of the videotaping of a U.S. Marine shooting an injured Fallujah insurgent in a mosque, Reyes said, "We don't want to know everything that's going on in the field. ...
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Iraq's Media High Commission, established by the United States "to encourage investment in the media and deter state meddling," warned media organizations in Iraq to "set aside space in your news coverage" of the Fallujah assault "to make the position of the Iraqi government, which expresses the aspirations of most Iraqis, clear." The statement continued, "We hope you comply ...
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
As the U.S.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent has critiqued the practice by his newspaper and others of relying on information from "expert analysts" without informing readers that many of the experts represent the interests of their financial sponsors. "Bad reporters find experts by calling up university press relations officials or brokerage research departments and saying, in effect, 'Gimme an expert,'" he writes. "Really bad reporters, paradoxically, work a little harder: knowing the conclusions they want to arrive at, they seek out experts who just happen to agree with them.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
The Committee of Concerned Journalists, a consortium of reporters, editors, producers, publishers, owners and academics, has surveyed its own membership about the quality of election campaign coverage this year, and the results aren't pretty. Nearly three quarters of respondents gave the press a C, D or F grade, and only 3% gave an A. By large majorities they felt the news media has become sidetracked by trivial issues, has been too reactive and has focused too much on campaign strategy rather than substance.
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