Martiiiiiiiiiin!
Inveterate media watcher and regular OTM contributor Martin Walker gives his selection of this week’s hot topics in the European press.
One Country One System?
The government in Hong Kong will soon be unveiling a draft of an anti-subversion law that has already sparked huge demonstrations, both in opposition and support. The law codifies some loosely worded instructions in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution and has grave implications for free speech within the ex-colony. Orville Schell, dean of the journalism school at the University of California at Berkeley, and a long-time China expert, speaks with Brooke.
Letters
This week’s feedback includes input from a teenage fan of Channel One, tips from a libel law savvy listener, and season's greetings from a fellow sound tracker who recognized a familiar scream in the Two Towers.
Not For Sale
The State Department’s new offering for the perusal of the Arab world is an anthology called “Writers on America.” The book, featuring the musings of such literary figures as Michael Chabon, Julia Alvarez and Robert Pinsky, is officially propaganda, published explicitly to influence foreign audiences. It is also therefore, by the terms of the Smith-Mundt Act, unpublishable here in the U.S. The anthology’s executive editor, George Clack, speaks to OTM.
Hollywood Joins the Fray
An armload of big-ticket Hollywood talent, including some of the folks who brought us Star Trek and the Shawshank Redemption, have signed on to bring American-style programs, and through them presumably, American-style values to the Muslim world. The programs will be funneled through a non-profit group called Al Haqiqa (which means “the truth” in Arabic). It’s led by former Reagan Administration Ambassador-at-Large Richard Fairbanks, and according to him the creators of Al-Haqiqa have had significant success in Tinseltown.
Uncle Tom
Racial epithets are fired like bullets, for example last fall when Harry Belafonte likened Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice to ‘house slaves.’ Taunts like that, or the more incendiary ‘Uncle Tom,’ are commonly hurled, most often by African Americans accusing each other of not being “black” enough. But the Uncle Tom in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel is not the shuffling, submissive characters most people picture when they hear that name. As the 150th anniversary of that landmark book draws to a close, WNYC’s Allison Keyes offers a look at the fluctuating image of Uncle Tom.
War Technology
Technology is changing the way we report our news and guest Steven Livingston, Associate Professor of Political Communication and International Affairs at George Washington University, explains how. He talks with Bob.
War Games
The American military trains its troops to fight wars with elaborate and expensive combat simulations. The same ‘war games’ also give the military a chance to work on winning the media war, too - one soldier at a time. WNYC’s Fred Mogul reports on how military training feeds anti-media sentiment and thrives on the adversarial tension with the media.
War is Hell
Veteran war reporter Chris Hedges joins OTM to discuss his addiction to the drug he calls war. Speaking from 15 years of experience, he relays stories of being imprisoned in Sudan, expelled from Libya, ambushed in Central America, and shot at in Kosovo. His recently published book, “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning,” explores how the myth of war shapes a country and its politics.
Highlights from Past Shows
Blogging Lott
December 20, 2002
This week, amidst a wave of controversy, Senate majority leader Trent Lott announced his resignation from the leadership role. Lott's inflammatory remarks were intitially ignored and it was only days later that the story came under mainstream scrutiny. But according to New York post Columnist John Podhoretz, the comments were not ignored by bloggers-amateurs and professional pundits with their own websites. Brooke speaks with John Podhoretz.
Global Information War in the Works?
December 13, 2002
Last year, Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld unveiled a plan to create an Office of Strategic Influence-the purpose of which was to create and disseminate disinformation. Rumsfeld sidestepped the onslaught of criticism he received by claiming it was all a big misunderstanding and that the idea had been scrapped. But L.A. Times military analyst and critic Bill Arkin recently wrote that the Office of Strategic Influence was not dead. Brooke speaks with Bill Arkin.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
