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Last week we talked to Congressman Jim Marshall who had recently completed a 3 day tour of Iraq and found that the coverage coming out of Baghdad was far more dismal than the reality he perceived on the ground. Dexter Filkins has been covering Iraq for the New York Times for the last six months. He spoke to Bob about the dissonance between what he saw over there, and what he’s hearing back home.
The Daily News, Zimbabwe’s only independent daily newspaper, was shut down by President Robert Mugabe’s government several weeks ago. The paper is forging ahead, online where they are now publishing, and in court where they are challenging the constitutionality of the very laws that are being used to silence them. Bob talks with Gugulethu Moyo, the legal representative for the Daily News, about the state of journalism in Zimbabwe and the danger she faces personally.
Columnist Robert Novak wrote last July that he had received information from top administration officials regarding the wife of a former US diplomat. This week the Justice Department said it would investigate the leak because the wife in question is a CIA agent and releasing information about an agent is illegal. A fire storm is raging both politically and in the media about who is to blame and how the investigation should be conducted. Brooke spoke with Joshua Marshall, author of the well-known blog, Talkingpointsmemo.com, who has been scrutinizing the unfolding scandal.
Leaks are part and parcel of the Fourth Estate, and a tremendous irritant to the Bush Administration, especially in early days of the War on Terror. That was when Bob produced this piece on the pros, cons, and process, behind the creation of the ever-present Washington leak.
A new movie out this month depicts the rise and very dramatic fall of the former journalist, Stephen Glass. In 1998 he was exposed as a fraud by his own editor at the New Republic and was immediately fired. In the aftermath it was discovered that most of what he had submitted during his short but stunning career had been fabricated. David Plotz is a writer for Slate and is married to Hannah Rosin, a former colleague of Glass. He spoke to Brooke about the experience of seeing a version of his wife on the big screen.
Television viewers have a right to know when an ad is an ad. Schemes like product placement make the lines between a character trait and a paid advertisement very blurry. The organization Commercial Alert wants to clear it up. Brooke talks with co-founder Gary Ruskin about their latest petition. He wants the audience to know when they are being persuaded and he says it is a matter of obeying the law.
30 years ago, an epistolary madman named Lazlo Toth burst onto the scene with the Lazlo Letters, a collection of actual correspondence between a fictional middle American and the real leaders of political and corporate America. Now, Lazlo is back with a new collection, titled Bush to Bush, documentary evidence that snail mail as a communications medium is not dead yet. Bob spoke with comedian Don Novello, familiar to many as his other alter ego, Father Guido Sarducci.
Highlights from Past ShowsMuch of the media seemed to greet General Wesley Clark with a red carpet when he entered the presidential race last week. But judging from the subsequent coverage of Clark in the major dailies, it didn't take long for reporters and pundits to yank the carpet from under him. National Journal media columnist Bill Powers tells Bob why he thinks the General's sudden top-dog status could spell his downfall.
A remarkable shift appears to be underway in America's mainstream press. Since September 11th, news organizations have dutifully reported the pronouncements of the administration, while efforts to point out the inconsistencies therein were largely relegated to commentators and Op-Ed pages. But when President Bush declared this week that there was no evidence connecting Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks, the media responded with a collectively raised eyebrow. Brooke discusses talks to one of the most diligent presidential fact-checkers, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
