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Just before Al Gore announced he would not be a candidate for president in 2004, he vented to the New York Observer that he and his fellow Democrats could not get a fair shake from media increasingly in the pocket of Republicans. But Al Gore has been flogged by media across the political spectrum. Paul Waldman documents this all in the latest issue of the liberal "American Prospect" and talks with Brooke.
On New Year's Day, the New York Times reported that Democrats felt outflanked by media pundits on the right. There's no shortage of conservative firebreathers on radio and TV, but where are their liberal counterparts? Why no Rush Limbaugh of the left? Bob speaks with Alan Colmes, the designated liberal on Fox News Channel's nightly show Hannity & Colmes, also humorist Al Franken, who thinks the trick is not to be bombastic, but to be credible.
After years of battling copyright infringement in the courts, Hollywood, armed with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is trying to turn the enemies' digital devices to its own advantage. NPR's cultural trends correspondent Rick Karr helps OTM make sense of this confusing cross between technology and copyright law.
The debate over oil consumption is like any long-standing argument, studded with lies and statistics. According to a report called Sorry, Wrong Number, these "facts" are being misrepresented by advocates on both sides of the drilling debate…and in turn, being misused by the media. OTM talks with Jonathan Koomey, the scientist who spearheaded the report at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
After a deluge of feedback prompted by last week's extended parody of public radio called "Pledge This!," here is a sample of what our listeners had to say.
At the end of last Sunday's New York Giants-San Francisco 49ers playoff game, the officials made a mistake that cost the Giants a chance to win. The only members of the press who get the full picture of what really happens on the field may be a small handful of men who gather every week during the season in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. In the midst of last year's NFL playoffs, OTM's John Solomon paid them a visit.
For a new CBS series one lucky rural family will be uprooted from its home and transplanted to a southern California mansion to have its every hilariously unsophisticated move and utterance videotaped for the show called "The Real Beverly Hillbillies." Putting exhibitionists in degrading situations for the voyeuristic pleasure of the masses is nothing new, but an organization called The Center for Rural Strategies is incensed about this one. Dee Davis, president of the Center for Rural Strategies, talks with Bob.
In a series called "After the Media," reporters from the Allentown, PA daily newspaper, "The Morning Call" return to the victims of tragedy, scandal, and other media feeding-frenzies, so that they can describe the experience of being trapped in the camera's lens. Brooke talks with journalists Margie Peterson, who came up with the idea, and Mike Frassinelli, who regularly writes for the series.
The public watches in horror as reporters are dispatched in battalions in pursuit of the bereaved. The public is transfixed by the images, but uneasy, wondering 'Should we be eavesdropping on another's sorrow?' Covering tragedy is never a pleasant job and the reporters that do it are often chastised for callousness. Brooke reports on the relationship between those who suffer tragedy and those who cover it.
Highlights from Past ShowsAs the world waits for definitive proof that a baby has been cloned, we can amuse ourselves by reading about the cult that claims to have done it - the Raelians. Perhaps the most remarkable part of the story is that news outlets led with it before there was any proof that this cult had accomplished at all. Adam Bly, editor-in-chief of Seed Magazine, tells Brooke that we've all been badly served.
Inveterate media watcher and regular OTM contributor Martin Walker gives his selection of this week’s hot topics in the European press.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
