Thursday, Feb 12th
Last update08:04:59 AM GMT
Journalism Glance
Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather called on President Barack Obama to form a White House commission to help save the press Tuesday night in an impassioned speech at the Aspen Institute.
Corporate and political influence on newsrooms, along with the conflation of news and entertainment, has created what Rather called “the dumbing down and sleazing up of what we see on the news.”
For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, non-confrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.
I want to address the denials from Israel and the inaccurate reporting by a few journalists in addition to requesting state of Israel to acknowledge what it did to me, prosecute the members of the Shin Bet responsible for it and put in place procedures that protect other journalists from such treatment.
Since 2003, I’ve been the voice to the voiceless in the besieged Gaza Strip for a number of publications and news programs ranging from The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs to the BBC and, Morgenbladet in Norway as well as Democracy Now! These stories exposed a carefully-crafted fiction continuing control and exploitation of five-million people. Their impact, coupled with the reporting of others served to change public opinion in the United States and Europe concerning the dynamics of Israel and its occupation of Palestine.
The broadcaster favours Israeli over Palestinian sources in its news reports – as does al-Jazeera, a new study shows.
I am always baffled at the ferocity and frequency of accusations that the BBC's Middle East coverage is anti-Israel. I have yet to see convincing, thorough, statistical evidence that this is the case.
When it comes to the secret report on Middle East coverage by the BBC's Malcolm Balen, just about every article I have read in the mainstream British press assumes that it shows an anti-Israel bias by the corporation – despite the fact that no one has read it. I guess if you make an accusation often enough, not matter how baseless, it eventually sticks.
Fox News is on track to have its most-watched year ever, showing significant ratings growth despite having just come off a highflying election year.
With the second quarter coming to a close, Fox News averaged about the same number of viewers as the top three other cable news networks combined. And while rivals including CNN (-22%) and MSNBC (-18%) took hits following last quarter's inauguration-fueled boost, Fox News (-3%) remained nearly steady.
On CNN, Savage makes a labored attempt to come across as a perfectly normal guy whose church teachings forbid homosexuality and whose opinions on illegal immigration are in sync with mainstream America. But then, the next minute, on his own show, he's freaking out about "puffy-faced" men kissing. Oh, and he seems awfully threatened about multiculturalism, for some reason, shrieking about burning the Mexican flag.
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