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The war in Iraq was temporarily displaced from the headlines this week by speculation about a U.S. invasion of Iran – speculation triggered by Seymour Hersh’s latest jaw-dropper in the New Yorker. While many have wondered about the true intentions of President Bush, others couldn’t help but question those of Hersh’s sources. Slate defense analyst Fred Kaplan joins Bob with some possible explanations.
The New Yorker article about dealing with the perceived Iranian threat made waves not just in Washington, but in foreign capitals as well. Brooke joins washingtonpost.com’s foreign press watcher Jefferson Morley for a roundup of the headlines. And she speaks with Knight Ridder correspondent Hannah Allam, who’s been watching the reaction from Tehran.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is reputed to be Al Qaeda’s #1 man in Iraq. Much of that credit is bestowed by Jihadist websites, but the Washington Post has reported that hyping Zarqawi is a mission of the U.S. military, too, which countered with the claim that 90% of Iraqi suicide attacks are carried out by foreign fighters recruited by Zarqawi. Juan Cole, who blogs about the Mideast at juancole.com, tells Brooke that’s unlikely.
There are about 800 million radio sets in the U.S. and while some of them may be new, they are all so…old. The latest technology is digital or high definition – HD radio, for short – and without static. In New York and many other cities you can listen to this very broadcast in HD – that is, if you already have a pricey HD radio receiver. Phil Redo, former vice president of station operations at WNYC, joins Bob to explain.
Technology is now in development to encode music with what’s known as "broadcast flags" – encryption embedded in HD radios that allows users to amass a library of downloaded songs while preventing those songs from circulating, so to speak. A bill endorsed by the Recording Industry Association of America has been introduced to make flag technology mandatory for all HD and satellite radios. Gigi Sohn, of the public-interest group Public Knowledge, explains her objections to Bob.
The Big Apple is powered by gossip, but the electrical grid nearly overloaded last week when the best gossip was about the gossips themselves. The case continues to be fought in the court of public opinion as nearly every paper spills ink bemoaning our lurid fascination with those who live and die by the dirt. Reporter Jessica Seigal looks back a few years to the cautionary tale of a Page Six gossip-monger who couldn’t help telling the truth.
Even before the facts were in, few media watchers were shocked by the notion that journalistic ethics might be an afterthought when dishing about the famous. But it wasn’t always so. The architect of the modern gossip industry was Walter Winchell, who had his own keen, if unique, sense of principle. Brooke speaks with Neal Gabler, author of Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity, about Winchell’s commitment to delivering his dish buffet-style.
Highlights from Past ShowsThis week it was revealed that Scooter Libby said that Vice President Cheney said that President Bush said … that he should leak information from the secret National Intelligence Estimate, to New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Questions abound, and Brooke is joined by Josh Gerstein, who broke the news in the New York Sun, to discuss what the new facts mean for the President and for Patrick Fitzgerald’s ongoing investigation into who leaked CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity.
The immigration policy debate has been brewing in for years in Washington. But when half-a-million people turned out for a massive protest last weekend in L.A., many Americans sat up in surprise. Many, that is, who hadn’t been consuming Spanish-language media, where the rally had been plugged for weeks. Bob talks to University of Southern California journalism professor Felix Gutierrez about what the Anglo mainstream missed.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
