Category: Media Beat column

No doubt many people are glad that Ted Koppel will become a regular voice on National Public Radio. He recently ended 25 years with ABC’s “Nightline” show amid profuse media accolades. But what kind of journalist goes out of his way to voice fervent admiration for Henry Kissinger? Days ago, NPR announced that Koppel will…

The picture was perfect. It provided a moving portrait, an image that journalists called “iconic.” It was true to the moment. Yet the photograph was deceiving in a way that media images often are — showing us what’s more apparent than real. One day, during the second week of November 2004, millions of Americans saw…

With Ariel Sharon out of the picture, Benjamin Netanyahu has a better chance to become prime minister of Israel. He’s media savvy. He knows how to spin on American television. And he’s very dangerous. Netanyahu spent a lot of his early years in the United States. Later, during the 1980s, he worked at the Israeli…

In a constructive spirit, here are some resolutions for America’s big media outlets in 2006. Daily newspaper editors: Just about every paper has a business section, where the focus is on CEOs, company managers, profit reports and big-time investors. But a lot more readers are working people — and a daily labor section would be…

Journalists should be in the business of providing timely information to the public. But some — notably at the top rungs of the profession — have become players in the power games of the nation’s capital. And more than a few seem glad to imitate the officeholders who want to decide what the public shouldn’t…