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Images of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US military have been circulating for a couple of weeks - now they are joined in the newspapers and on television, by images of the horrific beheading of an American civilian in Iraq. UPI Senior Editor Martin Walker spoke to Brooke about reactions of the world press.
Members of congress viewed yet more photos from Abu Ghraib this week and were undecided as to whether to release them to the public or not. Some said that no matter what decision they came to it was inevitable that the pictures would get out there anyway. Peter Howe, a veteran photojournalist and former picture editor of The New York Times Magazine, told Brooke that such are the vagaries of documenting war in the digital age.
Howard Stern wants the Bush team out of the White House come November, and he's wielding his mighty mic to influence millions of listeners to vote. For his efforts he has won little support from Democrats who probably find the self-titled King of All Media a little too hot to handle in an election year. But Stern battles on. He may stand alone, but with a massive army of listeners behind him. New York Observer columnist Joe Hagan joined Brooke to discuss his recent story, "Howard's Private War."
Shock jocks are not the only ones feeling the hot breath of the FCC on the back of the neck. So has the high-tone Public Broadcasting Service. Recently, Masterpiece Theater, in consultation with PBS, cut not just the usual f-word but also the s-word, formerly acceptable-in-context, from the British series "Prime Suspect." Mystery and Masterpiece Theatre Executive Producer Rebecca Eaton explained that PBS had to consider the real effect of FCC fines on PBS stations.
Early next month, a new film opens called the Stepford Wives. Not that there hasn't been a "Stepford Wives" before. And finishing now for an imminent release is "The Manchurian Candidate." Sound familiar? And coming up early next year? King Kong! Raiding and retreading old movie classics is in itself, a time-honored tradition, but it has a mixed history at the box office, as WNYC's Sara Fishko reported.
After interviewing more than a thousand adults in the 18 battleground states that have been running campaign commercials since March, the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey found that 61 percent believe that President Bush favors sending jobs overseas, and that John Kerry voted for higher taxes 350 times, even though, as the New York Times noted this week, neither of those assertions are true. Only 19 percent of those surveyed admitted to believing the ads, but that's the only place where they would find those so-called facts. So how did those interviewed get their information? Atlantic senior editor Joshua Green explains the nefarious practice of Opposition Research.
The editor of the Appleton Post Crescent had received calls charging that the paper was biased against President Bush, and moreover, that it never printed any letters supporting him. So the paper responded with an editorial that said, "if you would like to help us 'balance' things out, send us a letter, make a call or punch out an e-mail." In other words, you don't like the letters? Write your own. Executive Editor Andrew Oppman tells Brooke of the contretemps that ensued.
Over 30 years ago, Al Primo changed local TV news forever when he created the 'Eyewitness News' format. Now he trolls for a different demographic…the Mary-Kate and Ashley type. 'Eyewitness Kids News' is currently on about 200 stations across the country. NPR's Mike Pesca spent some time with a news team whose major competition is Saturday morning cartoons
Highlights from Past ShowsThe scandal over treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib Prison shows no sign of dying down here in the U.S. And thanks to the new ubiquity of satellite television, the infamous images continue to resonate throughout the Arab world as well. Bob speaks with Knight Ridder Baghdad Bureau Chief Hannah Allam about how the story is playing in Iraq.
For more than two years now, U.S. officials have frequently lashed out at al-Jazeera, the most popular Arab language news network. It has been accused of anti-American bias, inflammatory rhetoric, and deliberate misrepresentation of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This week, Secretary of State Colin Powell formally complained about al-Jazeera to the government of Qatar, which funds the station. Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Robert Tappan tells Brooke why he thinks the network is out of line.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
