Category: Media Beat column

Several days after the mass killings at Virginia Tech, grisly stories about the tragedy still dominate front pages and cable television. News of carnage on a vastly larger scale — the war in Iraq — ebbs and flows. The overall coverage of lethal violence, at home and far away, reflects the chronic evasions of the…

The Pentagon’s most likely next target is Iran. Hillary Clinton says “no option can be taken off the table.” Barack Obama says that the Iranian government is “a threat to all of us” and “we should take no option, including military action, off the table.” John Edwards says, “Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed…

by Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon It’s become a TV ritual: Every year on April 4, as Americans commemorate Martin Luther King’s death, we get perfunctory network news reports about “the slain civil rights leader.” The remarkable thing about these reviews of King’s life is that several years – his last years – are totally…

The media spectacle that John McCain made of himself in Baghdad on Sunday was yet another reprise of a ghastly ritual. Senator McCain expressed “very cautious optimism” and told reporters that the latest version of the U.S. war effort in Iraq is “making progress.” Three years ago, in early April 2004, when an insurrection exploded…

The days are getting longer, but the media shadows are no shorter as they cover the war in Iraq through American eyes, squinting in Washington’s pallid sun. Debated as an issue of politics, the actual war keeps being drained of life. Abstractions thrive inside the Beltway, while the war effort continues: funded by the U.S.…