http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/media/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Fri, 15 Mar 2002 13:21:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1437/turning_the_tide/ What would happen if multinational media corporations were free to conglomerate and monopolize with even less regulation than Enron faced in the energy sector? Would they avoid getting too big because of the threat to democratic discourse? Or would they choose to maximize profits by crossing every boundary of communications technology to dominate what citizens see, hear and think? Anyone who has witnessed the patterns of media conglomeration that followed deregulation of radio ownership after enactment of the 1996 Telecommunications Act already knows the answer to that question: The media companies will go for the market dominance that assures untold profits. With a go-ahead from a federal judge and preparations underway at the deregulation-happy Federal Communications Commission to remove the… media Michelle Chen Fri, 25 Oct 2002 20:09:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/499/bush_apologistas/ In the past couple of months, as the Bush administration flogs its plans for war against Saddam Hussein, a flurry of commentators, most notably Christopher Hitchens of Vanity Fair and David Brooks of The Weekly Standard, have taken the left to task for its opposition to the war. Hitchens smothers “peaceniks,” “peace-mongers” and “Ramadanistas” with rhetorical meringue, sweet but insubstantial blather about how the war’s opponents are plagued by either “a masochistic refusal to admit that our own civil society has any merit” or “a nostalgia for Stalinism.” Brooks, letting Stalin lie, accuses “peaceniks” of repeating “the hatreds they cultivated in the 1960s, and during the Reagan years, and during the Florida imbroglio.” Brooks has a point. Doubts about the… media war in iraq Michelle Chen Fri, 31 Jan 2003 19:15:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/426/the_first_stone1/ Sectarian Reality Opposition to President Bush’s plans for a war against Iraq has burgeoned over the past weeks. But one would never know the extent of that opposition from reading national newspapers or listening to network newscasts. What little discussion there is about the anti-war movement has tended to focus on dissent within the movement, specifically criticism of International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), the coalition that helped organize the national demonstrations on January 18. ANSWER was founded in part by the Workers World Party, a Trotskyist group that grew out of a 1959 split with the Socialist Workers Party over the Chinese Revolution. In 1989, Workers World supported the Chinese government in its Tiananmen Square… media social justice war and peace war in iraq Michelle Chen Mon, 24 Feb 2003 01:30:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/429/sweeps_week_war/ The latest pronouncement by our Cowboy-in-Chief about the possibility of war dipped into the president’s vocabulary of the vernacular: “The game is over.” Could the administration be looking to popular culture for more than just catch phrases? A recent article in the Wall Street Journal pointed out a new development in television that is disappointing, inevitable and curiously reminiscent of Bush’s governing strategy. The Journal reported that “sweeps week,” long the haven of stunt programming designed to breathe momentary life into established series (with such attention-getting stunts as celebrity guest stars and the opening of various tombs and vaults), has become a sad, self-contained mini-season all its own—designed to expire ingloriously after the advertising rates are secured. Upcoming during this… media politics war in iraq Michelle Chen Mon, 10 Mar 2003 10:00:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/435/total_information_control/ “Size of protest—it’s like deciding, well, I’m going to decide policy based upon a focus group,” said George W. Bush, trying to dismiss the millions of demonstrators who took to the streets on February 15 to protest the administration’s plans for war with Iraq. Bush said what he did, no doubt, because White House strategist Karl Rove had discovered through focus groups that Americans view “focus groups” as a negative. The Defense Department, at the request of the Senate, has put the price tag on war with Iraq at $95 billion—and 99 cents. But the Pentagon has yet to release an estimate of the human cost, and the Senate hasn’t requested one. (Could it be that “conflagrating innocent civilians” is… activism media politics social justice war in iraq Michelle Chen Fri, 14 Mar 2003 13:46:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/436/spies_like_us/ In its drive to sell the world on its plans for war with Iraq, the Bush administration has deployed its intelligence agencies to spy on friendly governments and to doctor evidence to prove Iraqi wrongdoing. On January 31, Frank Koza, a National Security Agency official, sent a “Top Secret” memo to NSA agents and British intelligence, informing them that the NSA is spying on U.N. Security Council members “for insights as to how membership is reacting to the on-going debate.” In that memo, leaked to the Observer of London, Koza wrote that NSA is monitoring all communications of “UN Security Council members (minus US and GBR of course).” Specifically, Koza asks his agents to use their electronic surveillance “product lines”—bugging… government: administration media politics war in iraq Michelle Chen Thu, 20 Mar 2003 17:48:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/437/shock_and_awe_how_to_combat_awful_war_coverage/ Now that Team Bush has gotten its way and unilaterally launched an invasion of Iraq, those of us who oppose this immoral madness are sick at heart. It’s easy to feel impotent and, worst of all, like exiles in our own country. That is certainly one of the top goals of the Bush Board of Directors: to convince us that we are a tiny, marginal, unrepresentative minority. This is false. While more Americans support this war than many of us would like, 52 percent of those polled by CBS from March 7 to 9 wanted to give the arms inspectors more time, and 42 percent disapproved of how Bush was handling the situation in Iraq. (51 percent approved.) This is… media social justice war in iraq Michelle Chen Fri, 28 Mar 2003 15:26:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/439/the_un_american_media/ There was a time you could safely assume that anyone calling skeptical coverage of the war in Iraq “un-American” was probably also speed-dialing Rush Limbaugh. Now it seems that calling skeptical coverage of the war “un- American” is probably correct, if only in the most literal sense. With the American press largely distracted or enraptured with the spectacle of combat, the duty of examining the motives behind the war has fallen to the world’s other media outlets. The audience for these un-American stories is becoming more and more American. In the past month, foreign news Web sites have seen large volumes of traffic from computers in the United States. Wired reported that almost half of the visitors to the Guardian… media war in iraq Michelle Chen Mon, 14 Apr 2003 11:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/440/the_people_vs_richard_perle/ March should have been a triumphant month for Richard Perle. The former American Enterprise Institute fellow and assistant secretary of defense has been calling for regime change longer and louder than anyone. But on March 27, as the media dug ever deeper into his encyclopedic catalog of conflicts of interest, Perle abruptly left his post as chairman of the Defense Policy Board (he will still serve as a director on the board). Reaching Perle on the phone to discuss his resignation, the New York Times found the iconic neoconservative in kind of a cranky mood: “Let me just tell you something,” Perle said to the reporter, refusing to confirm his departure before angrily hanging up. “If I had [resigned], you’d… government: judiciary media war in iraq Michelle Chen Mon, 28 Apr 2003 16:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/442/regime_change_begins_at_home/ How great it was. By most accounts—that is, what one sees on television and reads in the mainstream press—the war in Iraq was a resounding success. Iraqis are rid of Saddam Hussein, which is great, and only a few score Americans are dead. (The Iraqi dead from sanctions and the two wars are not part of the calculation, having never really counted—or been counted.) Those in the media also see themselves as winners. “We had total freedom to cover virtually everything we wanted to cover,” NBC’s Chip Reid told The Associated Press. CBS News President Andrew Heyward put it this way: “This really has been, not just a quantitative change, but a qualitative change in war journalism.” Say what? Yes,… media war in iraq Michelle Chen Wed, 28 May 2003 16:09:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/450/isn_that_special/ France has charged that U.S. media are publishing misinformation received from anonymous Bush administration officials who are orchestrating a “disinformation campaign aimed at sullying France’s image and misleading the public.” If the charges are true—and, based on the documentation provided by the French government, they appear to be—the White House is engaged in a domestic covert operation to pervert American public opinion. Such campaigns are illegal under the laws governing U.S. intelligence agencies. In a May 15 letter to members of Congress, the Bush administration and the U.S. media, French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte draws attention to eight reports that appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, MSNBC and Newsweek ([url=http://www.info-france-usa.org]http://www.info-france-usa.org[/url]). The stories range from France’s… media politics war in iraq Michelle Chen Mon, 02 Jun 2003 10:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/449/the_abcs_of_media_deregulation/ As soon as most people see the words “duopoly,” “cross-ownership rules,” or “FCC” in the headlines their eyes glaze over. But not my friend and many people’s hero, Bob McChesney. Bob eats memos about telecom regulations for breakfast. He has campaigned tirelessly, along with John Nichols, Mark Crispin Miller, Jeff Chester, and others, for reform of our nation’s media regulatory apparatus. But I just had a very eye-opening chat with Michael Powell, head of the FCC. And now I realize that Bob is just getting excited over nothing: He doesn’t grasp how progressive and democratic “market forces” can be, and he fails to understand that letting Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation own as many media outlets as possible will ensure that… government: agencies media Michelle Chen Fri, 20 Jun 2003 11:30:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/457/the_end_of_race/ I’m not sure if many Americans have noticed, but the concept of race has taken some devastating hits in recent years. Everywhere one looks in academia these days—from the abstract precincts of critical theory to the hard laboratories of molecular genetics—once-mighty notions of racial taxonomy have fallen hard. The latest assault on race was a three-part PBS series, Race: The Power of an Illusion. Produced by California Newsreel, the series covers a wide range of race-related issues. But the program’s title is its major point: Racial differences are illusory. For many Americans, this is pretty radical stuff. Well before the republic was founded, the belief in racial hierarchy was deeply embedded in our national culture, and there it endures. A… media race social justice Michelle Chen Mon, 07 Jul 2003 20:30:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/456/nose_loops_a_media_accessory/ It would hardly be an overstatement to say that the late spring and early summer of 2003 have been one of the lowest points in U.S. media history. And I’m not even including the highly dispiriting spectacle of eight-year-olds on Fox’s talent show American Juniors saying that what they want most out of life is “to be famous” or “to have a really expensive car.” The Jayson Blair scandal has received the most coverage in recent weeks—not least by the New York Times itself. But very few news outlets (not surprisingly) have stood back to look at the broader trends at work. Certainly the most embarrassing (for the news media) and worrying (for the rest of us) has been their… media war in iraq Michelle Chen Mon, 28 Jul 2003 09:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/461/sells_like_teen_spirit/ The nice thing about living in Washington is that on your way to the mall you can see ads promoting Lockheed-Martin’s Super Hercules airplane—“a totally new, advanced, fully integrated digital weapons system.” A study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania recently found that lobbyists spent $105 million during the 107th Congress on such advertising—designed for members of Congress, not the public. The nice thing about living in New York is that you can go see Josh Hartnett expound on the future of the Democratic Party. Talk about making love and not war. The Dems could do worse. Hartnett looks better in a swimsuit than John Edwards, even. He’s adorable, he’s a Midwesterner, and last month… media politics regulation Michelle Chen Mon, 11 Aug 2003 08:30:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/464/this_summer_the_worm_is_turning/ Ah, this is the life. To be on vacation near the ocean, sunning on the beach by day, and, by night, hearing Hardball’s Chris Matthews, of all people, repeatedly liken Bush to Ted Baxter, the obtuse anchorman on the old Mary Tyler Moore Show. As I eat fried calamari and striped bass, I get to see Matthews, hardly a friend of progressives, hammer Team Bush over their serial lying about weapons of mass destruction and yellowcake. Was Bush such a clueless puppet, sputters Matthews, that he simply read whatever Cheney or Rumsfeld put in front of him and told him to sell to the nation? Why, I must be in Margaritaville. Since Team Bush came to power, those of us… government: military media war in iraq Michelle Chen Thu, 19 Feb 2004 15:56:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/514/what_the_fcc/ I am sure that if you, like me, see the footage of the “wardrobe malfunction” one more time you’re going to hurl your TV out the window. An entire week of the Dean scream, and now this. (Will we see, except on “The Daily Show,” repeated images of Bush’s multiple flubs on “Meet The Press”?) How much lower can TV news go, expressing its faux outrage so that it can show the offending video clip for the billionth time? It would be nice if the details of the Bush energy bill, or of Medicare “reform,” or of how many homeless people are freezing this winter had gotten a fraction of the coverage. And don’t you love the newly sanctimonious FCC… media regulation Michelle Chen Fri, 27 Feb 2004 15:54:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/516/the_sludge_report/ The rumor cropped up February 12 on Matt Drudge’s Web site, and he treated it with his customary reserve: CAMPAIGN DRAMA ROCKS DEMOCRATS: KERRY FIGHTS OFF MEDIA PROBE OF RECENT ALLEGED INFIDELITY, RIVALS PREDICT RUIN. If the editors here would let me run the previous lines in type about five times this size and insert an animated siren, you might understand the level of hysteria with which Drudge, at least, greeted this news. Rush Limbaugh, of course, took to the air with it minutes later, and other conservative organs followed. On my own political news and gossip Web site, I expressed doubt as to the veracity of these allegations, running Drudge’s rumor with the headline, “Kerry: Would You Have Sex… media election 2004 Michelle Chen Mon, 22 Mar 2004 09:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/524/bushettes_it_a_bad_thing/ Ah, the dreams of the women’s movement. We envisioned a day when there would be women in high places, and here we are, with a female national security adviser, a female Secretary of the Interior, a female Labor Secretary and even our latest female corporate felon. Now, I’ve never been a fan of Martha. Her elevation of domestic chores to an obsession, the profusion, in her magazines, of those dictatorial images insisting that your house be a sun-drenched, voile-curtained, neat-as-a-pin showroom, and her smug condescension while trimming the rough edges off poached eggs, all made me long to throw a cream pie at her. But like many, I see her prosecution and conviction as a cross between showboating by federal… gender media politics social justice Michelle Chen Fri, 26 Mar 2004 16:33:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/716/bought_and_paid_for/ It’s official: President Bush’s re-election campaign is underway. For those who haven’t been paying attention—and Bush, Cheney and their corporate cronies certainly hope you haven’t—the president officially launched his campaign at a March 20 “kickoff” rally in Orlando. “I’m looking forward to this campaign ahead,” Bush told the assembled party faithful between chants of “Four more years!” and “USA! USA!” “With you at my side, there is no doubt in my mind we’re headed to a victory.” Bush may claim the “political season” is just beginning, but he has spent the past nine months crisscrossing the country on a dash for cash, personally headlining 45 million-dollar fundraising events on the way to amassing an unprecedented $170 million campaign war chest.… corporations economy media politics regulation election 2004 Michelle Chen