More Middle East coverage this week… more charges of bias. Over the years, most news organizations have become accustomed to complaints from all sides in the conflict. But as Shankar Vedantam wrote this week in the Washington Post, studies show that the partisans who lob most of the criticism are predisposed to see bias, for the simple reason that they care. Vedantam explains to Bob the psychology of the partisan prism.
As pundits and columnists debate the Middle East conflict, ordinary “netizens” are debating the war online. And new technology is allowing participants themselves to share their impressions not only through blogs, but also vlogs and video-sharing sites like YouTube. Bob logs on and finds out that the conversation reveals more about online social dynamics than the conflict itself.
The legal landscape is still feeling the aftershocks of the disclosure, last December, of a vast NSA domestic wiretapping program. But a bill sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter would take all of the pending cases against the NSA and move them to a secret court, off limits to media and the public. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley tells Brooke why the proposed solution might be worse then the original offense.
Earlier this year, New York Post gossip columnist Jared Paul Stern was accused of trying to extort his sources in exchange for favorable coverage. He hasn’t been charged with a crime, but if it does turn out Stern is guilty he wouldn’t be the first person to cash in on the power of the pen. Columbia University journalism professor Robert Love tells Bob about a few of Stern’s seedy antecedents.
For years, Twin Cities NBC affiliate KARE has been the undisputed king of local news. And that’s due in no small part to the down-homey feel of its newscasts, which have played well in a market famous for its… niceness. But this summer, KARE lost its top ratings spot to the CBS affiliate. And as Sarah Lemanczyk reports, many observers are blaming KARE’s new anchor, a man who viewers aren’t convinced is quite nice enough.
Oh, the celebrity interview! Rock stars and A-list actors can be impenetrable fortresses, so how to break through the façade and get to the keep? As a long-time Rolling Stone writer and erstwhile MTV vee-jay, Jancee Dunn penned a sort of field manual for teasing out that crucial quote. Brooke speaks with Dunn about her new memoir, But Enough About Me: A Jersey Girl’s Unlikely Adventures Among the Absurdly Famous.
Highlights from Past Shows
Whenever news media turn their attention to the Middle East, accusations of bias – from all sides – are sure to follow. This week was no exception. But the story’s a little different than it’s been in the past, and bias aside, American media haven’t quite adjusted to the new realities. That’s the view of J.J. Goldberg, editor of the Jewish newspaper The Forward. He tells Brooke that journalists’ attempts at “scrupulous balance” come at the expense of accuracy.
The news from the Mideast this week was both eerily familiar and newly terrifying. A hostage-taking turned conflagration quickly involved Israel, Lebanon and Gaza in reciprocal bombings. Press in the U.S. struggled to find context and reflexively reviewed the past, but in the Middle East news outlets covered an immediate, unfolding story. Susan Caskie, international editor for The Week magazine, joins Bob for a roundup.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
