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Jane M. Hightower
$16.47
By Molly Ivins
$9.72
$23
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Why does the Darfur violence arouse outrage but the slaughter of millions more in Congo does not? An indispensable new book by Gerard Prunier attempts an answer by combining cool analysis and scholarly dispassion without losing sight of the horror of its subject.
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White House / Ollie Atkins
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Two Truthdig contributors are under siege by an “independent historian” and The New York Times. If that sounds preposterous, just wait until you see what made it onto the front page. Last Sunday, the paper of record cited an unpublished article contending that historian Stanley Kutler deliberately altered transcripts of Nixon’s secret tapes in order to protect John Dean.
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AP photo / Sebastian Scheiner
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By Chris Hedges — The assault on Gaza exposed not only Israel’s callous disregard for international law but the gutlessness of the American press. Nearly all reporters were, as during the buildup to the Iraq war, pliant stenographers and echo chambers.
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AP photo / Abdel Kareem Hana
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By Chris Hedges — Israel will, from now on, speak to the Palestinians in the language of death. And the language of death is all the Palestinians will be able to speak back. The slaughter—let’s stop pretending this is a war—is empowering an array of radical Islamists inside and outside of Gaza.
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abc.go.com
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By G.W. Schulz, Center for Investigative Reporting —
The inaugural episode of ABC’s newest reality television series did exactly as producer Arnold Shapiro told viewers it would: unabashedly celebrated the Department of Homeland Security. It also failed in every conceivable way to critically examine the largest reorganization of the federal government since World War II.
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theatrum-belli.com
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Be it due to danger or the ever-present desire for security, the Israeli government has always found reason to forbid journalists to enter the Gaza Strip at times of “conflict.” The current brutal assault on Gaza is no different, but this time an association of journalists has filed a petition in the Israeli Supreme Court to demand access to the occupied territories.
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amazon.com
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A new book casts an illuminating spotlight on Colombia’s guerrilla war, fueled by cocaine profits and U.S. military aid.
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Flickr / Joe Shlabotnik
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On Monday, the paper of record published an e-mail from the mayor of Paris slamming Caroline Kennedy’s political maneuvering as “appalling.” Unfortunately, the Times failed to check whether the message was authentic—it wasn’t. Guess that explains all those articles by Nigerian princes.
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AP photo / Kevork Djansezian
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By Bill Boyarsky — I’m concerned about the uncertain future for journalists. Without them, who will “watchdog” politicians and bureaucrats, charity officials, cops, educators and the many others who help make our society run?
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By Joe Conason — Nearly every current poll shows that most Americans oppose federal assistance to the auto industry, but legislators should also consider how voters would feel if the nation suffered the full consequences of a cratering auto industry—and if those voters then found out that the facts were not quite what they seemed to be.
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Time’s veteran political reporter calls coverage of the 2008 election, during both the primary and general election, “the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war” because of “extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage.”
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By Regina Marler — A new volume of the late poet’s correspondence sheds fresh light on the anguish and art of Sylvia Plath.
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AP photo / Allauddin Khan
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The legacy of George Bush’s two “wars of liberation” may already be judged as foreign policy blunders, but the real costs of war remain even after the truism of failed empire. In Afghanistan, acid attacks on at least 15 female students mark a worrisome trend in women’s rights there. And in Iraq, an Iraqi soldier opened fire on a patrol of U.S. troops, killing two.
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Journo nonprofit ProPublica is aggregating reports of voting issues “ranging from voter registration to machine malfunction to alleged fraud or suppression.” See what’s going wrong and where, or report a problem yourself.
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AP photo / J. Scott Applewhite
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Sarah Palin’s relationship with the press has been like that of a deer to high-beams, but it’s not for lack of practice. According to an Associated Press count, Palin clocked more than 300 interviews and news conferences in just 20 months as governor.
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By Eugene Robinson — John McCain and Sarah Palin are going to try their best to make us talk about anything but the big issues facing our country, because most Americans think Barack Obama’s solutions are better.
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cbsnews.com
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It’s been a rough couple of years for the anchor of the last-place network newscast, but Katie Couric managed to silence many of her critics this week with an interview series that not only got a lot of attention, but scored points for her tough but fair style.
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AP photo / John Moore
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The acclaimed journalist stopped by our offices this week, where he told Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer that the Middle East is a lot less puzzling than it’s made out to be: “It’s we who are there, not the other way round. ... It’s not our land. It’s not our religion. Our soldiers are in the Muslim world and they should not be there.” Updated with parts 3 and 4
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composite: latimes.com and Flickr / Robert Scoble
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Steve Schmidt is widely credited with re-energizing the McCain campaign with his tough and often deceptive style, but his latest is a bit much, even for a Karl Rove protégé. During a conference call with reporters, Schmidt accused The New York Times of being “a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day impugns the McCain campaign.”
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Flickr / buddhakiwi
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Andrew Sullivan is miffed that John McCain’s No. 2 is still snubbing the media (and, by extension, the public): “It is now 24 days since she was announced as a potential president of the United States next January and she still hasn’t given a news conference or has any plans to hold one. This black-out of all serious press access has never happened in modern American political history before.”
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npr.org/blogs/secretmoney/
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This latest report from the “Secret Money Project,” an ongoing joint project by the Center for Investigative Reporting and National Public Radio, follows the money trail to the sources behind independently funded political advertisements on hot-button issues like abortion and religion that are cropping up as the Nov. 4 election approaches.
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richsamuels.com
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Former reporters from the L.A. Times and at least one current star columnist have filed a class-action suit against Sam Zell. The billionaire’s reign over the paper beginning in late 2007 has not been pretty, and the lawsuit contends that recent violations of federal financial rules have “diminished the value of the employee-owned company to benefit himself and his fellow board members.”
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AP photo / Matt Rourke
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By Chris Hedges — St. Paul is a window into our future. It is a future where constitutional rights mean nothing and where lawful dissent is branded a form of terrorism.
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nymag.com
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Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews will no longer anchor MSNBC’s coverage of major political events, but will instead provide analysis for the network’s David Gregory, who will sit in the anchor’s chair. The network was under pressure, both internal and external, to rein in its two leading men, whose politics are well known. Olbermann himself initiated the move.
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By David Sirota — McCain’s ads are (inadvertently) incisive commentary on the death of Jeffersonian democracy. They aim to mock Obama, but they really lampoon “presidentialism”: our paternalistic view that presidents are godlike saviors—and therefore democracy’s only important figures.
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An Iraqi cameraman working for such distinguished news organizations as the BBC, Reuters and NPR was recently detained by the U.S. military for nearly a month. It was but the latest questionable detention in what critics view as a pattern of intimidation.
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AP photo / Steven Senne
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By Chris Hedges — If I had to choose between George W. Bush, naked and neighing on all fours while being ridden around the Oval Office by a spurred cowgirl Condoleezza Rice, or enduring his shredding of domestic and international law to wage an illegal war and bilking of the country on behalf of his corporate backers, I could learn to stomach a wide array of sexual escapades.
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Ron Suskind’s new book alleges that the White House ordered the CIA to fabricate a link between Iraq and al-Qaida. The CIA director at the time, George Tenet, calls the claim “ridiculous.” Suskind says that’s just an example of “George’s memory issue.”
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“Audition” details the life story, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, of a pioneering journalist-entertainer who reported the news while making it in ways both admirable and troubling.
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AP photo / Brennan Linsley
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By Scott Ritter — The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned.
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AP photo / Mark Lennihan
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By Chris Hedges — The decline of newspapers is not about the replacement of the antiquated technology of news print with the lightning speed of the Internet. It does not signal an inevitable and salutary change. It is not a form of progress.
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Illustration by Peter Scheer
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For 33 years, the Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review has brought the literary world to the doorstep of the nation’s largest book-buying community. That era is about to end, a fact that disturbs the section’s former editors who have written this formal protest.
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“The Daily Show” host marvels that the same media that investigated Barack Obama’s falsely alleged attendance at a madrassa can be shocked—shocked—by a cartoon poking fun at such rumors. Here’s what the Obama campaign should have said, in Stewart’s estimation.
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Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges warns in an L.A. Times Op-Ed that “If the sweeping surveillance law signed by President Bush on Thursday—giving the U.S. government nearly unchecked authority to eavesdrop on the phone calls and e-mails of innocent Americans—is allowed to stand, we will have eroded one of the most important bulwarks to a free press and an open society.”
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AP photo / Ron Edmonds
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Following Thursday’s announcement that Congress had passed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, there were some who weren’t willing to take the news sitting down. In fact, Congress’ capitulation sparked a legal response from the ACLU and The Nation magazine and two of its key contributors—Chris Hedges and Naomi Klein—in the form of a lawsuit.
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Flickr / compujeramey
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That Barack Obama would accept his party’s nomination at Invesco Field was an unwelcome bit of news for network executives who have already budgeted their election coverage. Apparently it costs more to broadcast from a stadium than an arena, and so the networks are threatening to scale down what they traditionally dismiss as a free commercial.
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By David Sirota — Books have survived radio and television for the same reason they will survive the Internet. Human life is simply too complex to be represented by a news spot or a blog post.
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak, file
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By Chris Hedges — Washington has become Versailles. We are ruled, entertained and informed by courtiers.
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Flickr / soldiersmediacenter
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Coverage of the Iraq war on American newscasts gets a fraction of the airtime it has in past years. Some network journalists complain that they have to beg to get Iraq stories on the air. Although the war in Afghanistan has recently gotten more coverage, no American network has a full-time correspondent on the ground there.
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“Daily Show” host and media critic Jon Stewart lampoons cable’s talking heads for bragging about their journalistic superiority to the Internet while reporting rumors directly from YouTube.
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By Eugene Robinson — He knew he was a big deal—he had a healthy ego and an accurate sense of his accomplishments. But I’m confident that he would be stunned at the magnitude of the reaction to his death, especially among people who never met him.
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flickr/hyku
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Veteran journalist and “Meet the Press” moderator Tim Russert died Friday of an apparent heart attack while recording voice-overs for Sunday’s show, according to NBC. Russert, 58, was also the network’s Washington bureau chief and had grilled politicians and public figures on “Meet the Press” since 1991.
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DoD / R.D. Ward
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By Scott Ritter — As a critic of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, especially when unsubstantiated allegations of weapons of mass destruction are used to sell a war, I am no stranger to the concept of questioning authority. It’s too bad more journalists can’t say the same thing.
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The World Newspaper Congress played host to Gary Kasparov on Tuesday. The chess wiz and Kremlin antagonist ridiculed his government for imposing limits on free expression. Indeed, Reporters Without Borders’ most recent annual index of global press freedom ranks Russia a dismal 144th. Still, there are plenty of places in the world where you can get beaten, arrested or killed for letting people know what’s going on.
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Flickr / marcn
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A new study by two of journalism’s leading independent institutions has found that complaints from Hillary Clinton and her campaign that the media treated her unfairly are largely unfounded. According to the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, it’s John McCain who should be upset with the coverage.
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onfrozenblog.com
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This just in: The Washington Post is the latest major newspaper to undergo the apparently inevitable newsroom downsizing process, clearing out 100 more journalists with a “blunt instrument,” as former Post (and former New York Times) writer Sharon Waxman reports in her WaxWord blog. “The Washington Post as I know it has jumped the shark,” Waxman laments.
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By Joe Conason — Double standards are endemic in American journalism. But Cindy McCain, wife of the Republican presidential candidate, displayed poor taste in flaunting her family’s special immunity from press scrutiny.
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By Amy Goodman — Sami al-Haj is a free man today, after having been imprisoned by the U.S. military for more than six years. His crime: journalism.
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Quelle Surprise! Haiti on the Mend
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