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It's been a week of troubling news out of the Middle East. 23 people were killed in a bomb blast at the UN Headquarters in Baghdad, and violence escalated again between the Palestinians and Israelis. World Press Review Contributing Editor Peter Valenti gives Bob a view of the events from the Arab press.
After a summer of intensely scrutinizing the Bush Administration's selling of the war in Iraq, many media outlets seem to be backing off. But not the Washington Post. More and more, the paper that expressed editorial sympathy for the war has relentlessly pursued government misrepresentations of the Iraqi threat. Bob talks to Washington Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie.
Tension between the Fox News Channel and some of its detractors has been building for months, and this week, it took one of its most prominent critics to court. Fox is suing satirist Al Franken for allegedly violating the trademark on its slogan "fair and balanced" in the title of his new book. But does the case hold water legally? Media lawyer Frank Dehn is skeptical, and tells Brooke why.
When CNN got a new chief earlier this year, there were great hopes among many insiders that the network would clarify its mission and take a turn for the better. But months later, CNN continues to fidget with its format and style, and still trails Fox in the ratings war. Jason Zengerle recently wrote about the turmoil at the network, and joins Bob to discuss it.
To utter the phrase "March on Washington" is to conjure the image of Martin Luther King on the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial. But there was much more to the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom than King's famous oratory that day. On the 40th Anniversary of the demonstration, Bob talks to Lucy Barber - author of Marching on Washington: the Forging of an American Tradition - about the media's packaging of the march.
Reporters have a rule of three: if they can come up with a trio of similar occurrences, they can announce that they've discovered a full-blown trend. But to what extent are the "latest crazes" really the result of a desperate search for story ideas? Bob reports on the media's cottage industry of trend-spotting.
Looking back over recent cultural commentary in the press, it appears that this summer will go down in history as the "Summer of Gays." It's a notion that's been championed by everybody from Reuters to the New York Times. Bill Powers wrote about the media phenomenon in his National Journal column this month, and he discusses it with Brooke.
In the alternate reality of TV-landia, is it really that unbelievable that a character from one show would run into somebody from a different program? Writers don't seem to think so - Seinfeld's neighbor Kramer once showed up as Murphy Brown's secretary, and Bobby from The Practice recently appeared on Ally McBeal. Jim Zarroli takes a look at the long and venerable tradition of the TV crossover.
Highlights from Past ShowsThere are some stories that journalists can't seem to report without bringing down an avalanche of criticism. Certainly, coverage of gun control and abortion inspires heated debate, but nothing like the rage that invariably follows stories about Israel. From Jerusalem, reporter Rick Davis investigates the challenges faced by reporters in the disputed territories.
The media is frothing with every development in the Kobe Bryant story. It has all the elements of an American scandal - money, celebrity, sex…and race. Long before jury selection and the first utterance of defense, the media have begun to speculate on the role of race in the case. Bob talks with Leon Wynter, author of American Skin: Pop Culture, Big Business, and the End of White America, about whether the media can afford to play the race card with the prince of the NBA.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
