Plenty of observers were shocked and appalled to learn of "fake reporters" being used to sell the government's message. But the Bush Administration didn't invent the video news release. Government agencies have been producing VNRs for years, not to mention companies out to hawk their wares. Last year, Bob prepared this report on the ubiquitous masquerading of public relations as news.
This week's one-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq offered news organizations the opportunity to reflect on their coverage of the lead-up to war. And just in time, Knight Ridder reporters turned up more evidence that the U.S. media was used by those who directly stood to gain from Saddam's ouster. Bob talks to Knight Ridder correspondent Jonathan Landay about the echo chamber of bad intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs.
The media were a strong and steady presence in the war against Saddam, partly because of a shift in military strategy. In previous wars the press had been kept at arm's length by the military, but its so-called "embedding" program allowed 800 reporters exclusive access to the action. In the weeks leading up to the fall of Baghdad, Brooke spoke with NPR's John Burnett, who was embedded with the 1st Marine Command Division in Iraq. He shares his thoughts on the experience one year later.
Included in the federal government's 2004 appropriations bill is $145 million for ads promoting the War on Drugs, many of which appear in public transportation systems. But buried alongside that allotment is an amendment barring funding for any transit authority that runs ads critical of the drug war. The ACLU doesn't like the amendment one bit, and has teamed up with drug policy reform groups to sue the government for censorship. Brooke talks to Graham Boyd, director of the ACLU Drug Policy Litigation Project.
As the ACLU makes clear, there are two sides to the drug policy debate. And there are, of course, two sides to the debate over the debate. Oklahoma Congressman Ernest Istook penned the amendment banning federal funding for transit authorities that run anti-Drug War ads. He tells Brooke why his stance is legitimate.
Try as civilized society might to kill them, zombies just won't die. This week, the flesh-eating resurrected returned once again to the silver screen. The much-anticipated remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead includes some new and improved special effects, but the dead are still dead, and the story is no less gripping than it was more than a quarter-century ago. Last year, OTM Senior Producer Arun Rath assembled this deconstruction of the zombie genre.
Highlights from Past Shows
Days after the Bush re-election campaign released its first round of TV ads, three anti-Bush ad campaigns hit the airwaves in 17 battleground states. Democratic challenger John Kerry's advisers are welcoming the ads, but are not involved with their production. And according to Bush-backers, that makes the ads illegal. Brooke talks to Democratic media consultant Karl Struble about what recent campaign-finance legislation means for election-oriented ads.
The bunting from Super Tuesday was hardly torn down when the President unleashed his first round of re-election ads this week. Critics are already lashing out at the Bush-Cheney campaign for exploiting 9/11 imagery, but at least one advertising critic thinks the spots are surprisingly tasteful, and restrained. Just so happens that critic is Ad Age columnist Bob Garfield. He joins Brooke to deconstruct the ads.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
