Category: Media Beat column

The latest polls show that most Americans are critical of the war in Iraq. But the option of swiftly withdrawing all U.S. troops from that country gets little media attention. So far this year, many news outlets have lapsed into conjecture on what George W. Bush has in mind for the Iraq war. At the…

By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon It’s become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King’s birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader." The remarkable thing about this annual review of King’s life is that several years — his last years — are…

A system glorifies its winners. The mass media and the rest of corporate America are enthralled with professionals scaling career ladders to new heights. Meanwhile, the people hanging onto bottom rungs are scarcely blips on screens. Far from the media spotlights are countless lives beset with financial scarcity, often in tandem with chronic illness, monotony,…

 The new year has scarcely begun, but Americans watching television have already heard a lot about God. When Larry King interviewed George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton the other night, CNN presented ample split-screen evidence that the Lord transcends political parties and backgrounds. The former presidents — blue-blooded Yankee and hardscrabble Arkansan — spoke…

At a pair of British daily newspapers — the Independent and the Guardian — plus the Observer on Sunday, journalists are far more willing than their U.S. counterparts to repeatedly take on powerful interests. Tough questions get pursued at length and in depth. News coverage is often factually devastating. And commentaries don’t mince words. A…