A new movie out this month depicts the rise and very dramatic fall of the former journalist, Stephen Glass. In 1998 he was exposed as a fraud by his own editor at the New Republic and was immediately fired. In the aftermath it was discovered that most of what he ...

The media is frothing with every development in the Kobe Bryant story. It has all the elements of an American scandal - money, celebrity, sex…and race. Long before jury selection and the first utterance of defense, the media have begun to speculate on the role of race in the case. ...

Comedian Bob Hope, who died early this week at the age of 100, was an American cultural institution and a mass media phenomenon in films, radio and TV. He even had a website of his jokes. But he also filled another role, widely ignored in the coverage surrounding his death. ...

David Brinkley died this week at the age of 82. Before he left his full-time post behind the news desk seven years ago, he had anchored a news show for four decades - longer than anybody else in the business. Veteran television executive Av Westin joins Brooke to reflect on ...

Lately, many celebrity entertainers are getting political, and their agents are getting nervous. But while these celebrities risk their profits by knocking the war, leading media consultants are advising their clients to make money by promoting it. Vivian Goodman reports on the interplay between patriotism and ratings.

Following last week's assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, the government has imposed a state of emergency and imposed restrictions on the media. Among the more than 1,000 people who have been arrested is Ceca Raznatovic, the country's most famous pop star and the widow of a notorious warlord. ...

MSNBC pulled the plug this week on Phil Donahue's short-lived talk show. Network execs claimed the show wasn't attracting enough viewers. But was the move a matter of simple numbers? Donahue, who was pulling MSNBC's highest ratings, claims he's a casualty of the network's sprint to the right. Rick Ellis ...

For years, Bob could hardly stand the saccharine sweetness of TV's most famous neighborhood-guru. But then he started watching his children watch Mr. Rogers. Fred Rogers died this week at the age of 74, and it got Bob thinking about the important role that Mr. Rogers played in his own ...

Lately, a number of prominent celebrities have been adding their voices to the chorus of antiwar sentiment. But while familiar names may garner attention for the antiwar movement, could celebs be hurting the cause by attracting the wrong kind of attention? Slate.com's Rob Walker thinks so, and makes his case ...

Ron Ziegler, the notorious Press Secretary for Watergate-era Richard Nixon, died this week at the age of 63. He will go down in history as perhaps the worst-regarded spokesman of the late 20th century. Brooke reflects on Ziegler's place in history, and on the point at which loyalty becomes a ...

Roone Arledge, who died this week, has been dutifully eulogized as a giant of modern broadcasting, first with ABC Sports, then as president of ABC news. The creator of "Wide World of Sports," Monday Football" and the slow-motion replay made no less of a mark on TV news than on ...

Princess Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, has been in the spotlight lately. Last year, he was arrested and charged with stealing from the Princess’s estate, but was exonerated after garnering the support Prince Charles and the Queen herself. But before the exoneration, came trial by media—and not just any media, ...

In the Vatican, all eyes are on Pope John Paul the Second. The 82-year-old Pontiff suffers from Parkinson’s Disease, and is showing signs of fatigue. For many Vatican experts and landlords, however, the Pope’s infirmity is providing a huge boon – most of which comes in the form of huge ...

The media has been saturated this week with speculation, discussion, and trepidation about the DC-area sniper. It didn’t take long before criticism of that coverage surfaced – from the Montgomery County Police, as well as from some who feared that all the coverage was really just giving the sniper precisely ...

Now and then the media cannot help but have some fun with a particular story. This week’s headlines about the sheriff who arrested a mother because of her children’s sunburn falls in that category. Behind the story, though, is a sheriff who doesn’t really care that the media did not ...

OTM regular Scott Shuger died last weekend in a scuba diving accident near his home in Los Angeles. Scott wrote the Today’s Papers column for Slate.com, and was one of our most frequent guests. Mike remembers.

Saad Eddin Ibrahim heads the Cairo Center for Democratic Studio in Egypt. Rarely does an obscure academic in an Arab country garner so much glowing attention from the media. But Ibrahim’s strong stances against his government’s policies have made him a hero in the eyes of more than one journalist. ...

Italy’s foremost public thinker also happens to be an accomplished media critic who’s written a lot on communication theory. So when intellectual giant Umberto Eco travels to New York City, OTM jumps at the chance to get him in our studio for an interview…to talk about pretty much anything he ...

The International Criminal Tribunal has always relied heavily on voluntary testimony from reporters, aid workers and governments alike. The key word here being voluntary. Last week, former Washington Post reporter Jonathan Randal became the first journalist in the history of the court to be issued with a subpoena to testify. ...

Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn’s recent assassination brought him more coverage in America than he ever received while alive. Normally lumped in with a cast of “potentially dangerous” right-wingers gaining popularity in Europe, Fortuyn’s obituaries finally provided a more accurate depiction of his eclectic ideological positions. Brooke talks to Mickey Kaus, ...