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The Democratic presidential race is heating up, and judging by this week's candidate debate, so is its entertainment value. Might the surprising liveliness of Tuesday's event have anything to do with its unlikely co-sponsor - Fox News? Slate.com's deputy Washington Bureau Chief Chris Suellentrop attended the 9-way face-off, and recounts some of the on- and off-stage highlights for Brooke.
This week, the FCC signaled that it would approve a controversial merger between the nation's largest Spanish language TV network and the biggest Spanish language radio network. Critics have argued the deal will allow Univision to unfairly dominate the Spanish language media market. But Univision counters that there really isn't any such thing as a separate Spanish language market, because Latinos regularly channel-hop between English and Spanish stations. Political Scientist Louis DeSipio has studied the media diet of Latinos in the U.S., and tells Bob that the truth is somewhere in between.
Thirty years ago this week, Chilean military generals mounted a coup to overthrow the government of Salvador Allende. The Nixon Administration had a central role in orchestrating the coup, and in doing so relied heavily on Chile's leading media mogul, Augustin Edwards. National Security Archive senior analyst Peter Kornbluh has documented the secret partnership, and talks with Brooke about the effort currently afoot in Chile to expel Edwards from the country's press guild.
While Al Gore was still but a cub reporter in Nashville, a precursor for the Internet was already in use…in Chile. That's according to MIT doctoral candidate Eden Miller, who says that in its short time in power, the Allende government developed a vast communications network in factories throughout the country that prefigured the Internet. Miller joins Bob to discuss Project Cybersyn, the lost piece of cybernetic history. The Official Stafford Beer website
On Wednesday, the Dow and Nasdaq each suffered minor losses after traders caught wind of a new videotape from Osama Bin Laden. At least that's what reporters at CNBC and the AP said. But can the trading of billions of shares every day really be traced back to one driving agent - political, economic, or otherwise? Bob takes a long - and of course, skeptical - look at the business media's tendency to boil down the complexities of the market to a single operative factor.
If journalists break the law in order to expose weaknesses in national security, should they be prosecuted? That's the question on the table of federal prosecutors, after an ABC News team successfully shipped a package of depleted uranium from Jakarta to Los Angeles. ABC says the package could have just as easily contained a bomb, and justifies the stunt as a legitimate test of American port security. But Homeland Security Department spokesman Dennis Murphy tells Brooke that noble intent does not justify crime, even by journalists.
We are often reminded of the privileges we enjoy as Americans, but here's one thing we can't do on native soil - tune in the Voice of America. The U.S. government radio station that was created as a propaganda tool during World War II is prohibited from broadcasting at home. Lifetime VOA staffer Alan Heil has compiled a comprehensive history of the network in a new book, and he joins Brooke to discuss it.
Highlights from Past ShowsLobbyists for CBS, NBC and Fox have descend on Washington, armed with new data from a poll by Republican pollster Frank Luntz that says the public doesn't mind media consolidation. Their first move was to place ads in two Washington-insider papers: Roll Call and The Hill with the slogan: "America Says: Don't get between me and my TV." NBC vice president and chief lobbyist Robert Okun lays out the network's case for 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.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
