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NBC News’s decision to broadcast Cho Seung-Hui’s final message earned the network major ratings, and a heap of criticism. But you had to look north of the border to find a major news outlet that didn’t follow NBC’s lead. CBC editor in chief Tony Burman explains why the CBC left the manifesto alone.
If Cho was acutely aware of his media image, so were many VT students who narrated their experience to the world. Thomas de Zengotita, author of Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in it, talks about the fusion of reality and representation.
The Chinese market is irresistible to many U.S. internet companies. But the price of doing business there is compliance with the authoritarian government. Internet law scholar Jonathan Zittrain discusses a new lawsuit against Yahoo on behalf of a jailed dissident.
In January, South America’s largest city officially banned outdoor advertising. Billboards, neon signs, bus-stop ads, even the Goodyear blimp - all were suddenly illegal. Folha de Sao Paulo reporter Vinicius Galvao describes seeing his city as though for the first time.
The mission of a Marine combat artist, dating back to World War I, is “Go to war, do art.” Combat artist Sergeant Kristopher Battles talks about the challenge of drawing a picture while escaping sniper fire.
All the blame and none of the glory – that’s the life of a newspaper copy editor. So why become one? Let New York Times chief copy editor Merrill Perlman count the reasons.
LA Weekly’s Jonathan Gold this week became the first food critic to win a Pulitzer Prize. While his most memorable meal was in France, he says he can more often be found haunting the taco stands of East Los Angeles.
64 years ago, Dr. Albert Hofmann embarked on the first intentional acid trip, when he ingested 250 µg and set out from his lab on a bicycle. On the anniversary of Bicycle Day, Acid Dreams author Martin Lee reflects on the uses and misuses of LSD.
Highlights from Past Shows
It had to be one heck of a slow news week for the media to be shocked by a show hiding in plain sight. Racist humor has been a staple of Imus in the Morning for decades, but somehow that never deterred journos and politicos from hawking their wares with the I-Man.
When Leaves of Grass was deemed obscene in 1882, Mark Twain wrote a defense of Walt Whitman’s “noble work.” Now, Twain's essay is being published for the first time, in the Virginia Quarterly Review. University of Iowa professor Ed Folsom calls it classic Twain satire.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
