On The Media is produced by:
When Pervez Musharraf traded in his military uniform for a suit and tie, or Castro embraced an Addidas track suit, it was that rare moment when dictatorial politics and the sartorial sweep of history collide. OTM takes this idea one step too far with Project Runway: Strongman Edition.
The 'micro-blogging' service Twitter gives you 140 characters to answer the question "What are you doing?" The answers, or tweets, are then broadcast to friends. It's a simple premise but internet consultant and author Clay Shirky argues as the service continues to grow, it's creating a complex and influential new way to communicate.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is an American-educated Bush Administration protégé. He has served as a compelling mouthpiece for his country in press coverage of the current conflict. David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker and former Moscow correspondent for The Washington Post gives his analysis of the Russia/Georgia clash.
This weekend, as an estimated 15,000 reporters head to Denver for the Democratic National Convention, Slate’s Jack Shafer asks, why? There hasn’t been a contested nomination since 1976, he argues, and news organizations’ resources would be best put to use elsewhere. Brooke puts his arguments to the test.
Some journalists have added Twitter as a reporting tool, both to gather and broadcast the news. Julio Ojeda Zapata, a technology columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, explains how non-stop twittering affects his reporting.
It’s an age old competition at the Olympics, between those who think the games should include a little context and those that think they should be solely a showcase for sport. The Washington Post's Paul Farhi’s been watching the Beijing games as a fan, but he argues that in Beijing there’s no excuse for the lack of context in the coverage.
We devote the show this week to the illustrious past and perilous future of investigative reporting. How will investigative stories fare in an era of layoffs and slashed newsrooms budgets? Reporter and UC Berkeley professor Lowell Bergman, Stephen Engelberg of the investigative nonprofit ProPublica and The City University of New York's Jeff Jarvis discuss the past, present and potential future of this core journalistic enterprise.
We asked and we received. Two weeks and 1,000+ entries later, we conclude our novel challenge with a reading of our favorite 12-word novels submitted by you.
During his resignation speech, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf touted his country's flourishing independent media as one of his accomplishments. But although Musharraf initially expanded media freedoms, he tried to squelch them near the end of his rule. The Christian Science Monitor’s Shahan Mufti describes Musharraf’s mixed media legacy.
We've all become semi-experts in using search engines and search terms to get the information on the web. But how easy is it to ask a question in normal language and get the right answer? Several new services are trying to do just that. OTM producer Mark Phillips set out to get some answers.
