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When Arnold the action hero morphed into Arnold the governor this week, it seemed like many members of media could not quite believe what they were reporting, despite pre-election polls which indicated an easy win for Schwarzenegger. In a recent column, Harper’s Magazine Editor Lewis Lapham chastised the eastern editors who could hardly mask their incredulity at the whole affair. He joins Brooke to discuss the election coverage.
When Arnold settles into the governor’s mansion, the notoriously “liberal” Tinseltown will have produced yet another Republican politician. In fact, while the acting community is viewed as almost monolithically on the political left, history shows that Republican thespians perform much better as candidates than do their democratic colleagues. On the Media’s John Solomon explains why.
When it comes to the so-called War on Terror, it sometimes seems that the American news media can only focus on one conflict at a time. So when the press moved on to Iraq this year, Afghanistan faded from the nightly news, and was largely relegated to the nooks and crannies of American newspapers. Or was it? Lately, one of the clichés of media criticism is that Afghanistan is the “forgotten war.” But as Washington Post Kabul correspondent Pam Constable tells Bob, it’s really just that the nature of the story has changed.
More and more, congressional Democrats are lashing out at what they see as the overly political – and dangerous – environmental policies of the Bush Administration. A recent study requested by Congressman Henry Waxman suggests the White House is actually manipulating scientific data, for example by playing up the effectiveness of abstinence-only programs, playing down the effectiveness of condoms, and squelching information related to global warming. Paula Park, a senior editor at The Scientist, tells Brooke the report might be partisan, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Critics of the Bush administration have also assailed the personnel it uses to shape environmental policy. Among the allegations of the Waxman Report is that the White House is appointing unqualified people to scientific advisory committees simply because of their industry ties or ideological agendas. Brooke discusses the charge with Science Magazine Editor-in-Chief Donald Kennedy.
Media scholar and social critic Neil Postman died this week in New York. In his many articles, books and lectures, Postman was passionate about the deleterious impact of television on children, and on society as a whole. In an age of increasing media saturation, he urged people to be skeptical of the rush toward new communications technologies. OTM’s Paul Ingles presents some of the more enduring questions raised in Postman’s work.
This week, French media conglomerate Vivendi Universal merged with NBC parent company General Electric. But news of the latest blockbuster deal that redraws the Big Media map did not seem to reverberate especially deeply through Wall Street, Madison Avenue, or Hollywood…or the news media. Bob talks to Advertising Age Editor Scott Donaton about how routine major media mergers have become.
In the city where celebrity and politics collide in a dazzling extravaganza of 24-7 gossip, all the gossipers are gossiping about one of their own. Last week, former Washington Post gossip columnist Lloyd Grove was transplanted to The New York Daily News, where his Lowdown column has already generated its own share of buzz. Grove, it seems, has successfully tapped into the age old art of success-stripping. Brooke goes inside the world of professional dirt-dishing in the gossip capital of the world.
Highlights from Past ShowsLast 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.
Much 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.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
