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By Colm Toibin
$19.99
By Gretchen Morgenson, Joshua Rosner
$17.04
$35
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By Amy Goodman — On Dec. 18, the five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission met in Washington, D.C., and, by a 3 to 2 vote, passed new regulations that would allow more media consolidation. This, despite the U.S. public’s increasing concern over the nation’s media being controlled by a few giant corporations.
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By Ellen Goodman — News flash: Hillary Clinton has crow’s-feet. Now let’s all thank Rush Limbaugh for giving us another clear view of the double standard on the campaign highway.
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Despite opposition from Congress and the public, the FCC has decided it’s in the nation’s best interest to relax decades-old ownership rules that prohibit media giants from owning newspapers and broadcasts outlets in the same local market. The idea behind the old rules, crazy as it sounds, is that it’s probably not a good thing to get all of your information from the same place. The FCC’s three Republicans and America’s media conglomerates disagree.
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boston.com
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It’s a big week for big media: First, Dow Jones & Co. officially approved Rupert Murdoch’s takeover of The Wall Street Journal, and now Lew Rockwell is reporting that Mitt Romney’s private equity firm is buying radio behemoth Clear Channel.
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By Amy Goodman — The CNN personality, who continues to beat the drum against “illegal aliens,” claims to be a journalist. If he really is one, he should respect facts and correct errors. Let’s all hold our breath until that happens.
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satiricalpolitical.com
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Fred Thompson told Chris Wallace of “Fox News Sunday” that his network was biased, charging that criticism against Thompson’s campaign “has been a constant mantra of Fox.” As if to demonstrate the point, Wallace shot back: “Do you know anybody who thinks you’ve run a great campaign, sir?”
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By Eugene Robinson — Finally, we’ve got a real presidential campaign on our hands. Wake up, those of you in the back row, because it looks as if the long-running seminar is finally over.
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AP photo / Ron Edmonds, File
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It’s really only a matter of time, after a member of the current administration steps down, before he or she re-emerges on the political and/or cultural scene. Take Karl Rove, for example, who, not to be relegated to some contrived yet lucrative “consulting” position (not yet, at any rate), will write about the upcoming elections for Newsweek.
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newsmax.com
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Though Ellen DeGeneres has taken her show across the picket line and some reality TV has improvised along, Hollywood is increasingly worried about its wordless future. Late night talk shows went to reruns immediately and the scripted shows are nearly tapped out of fresh episodes. The writers, meanwhile, show no sign of ending their strike any time soon.
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By Mark Sarvas — As the first Internet reporter for Yahoo News, Kevin Sites spent a year of living dangerously covering 20 wars all over the world. Is Web journalism the wave of the future? Mark Sarvas, a pioneer of literary blogging, takes a close look.
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latimes.com
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Writers began picketing network and studio headquarters on Monday, with the support of several celebrities and, courtesy of Jay Leno, a couple of boxes of doughnuts. There’s no telling how long the strike will last, but parallels to the 1988 walkout that cost Hollywood an estimated half a billion dollars have already been drawn.
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nytimes.com
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By Todd Gitlin — Was the Bush administration’s fevered response to 9/11 made easier by primal American myths of victimization and fear, as Susan Faludi argues in her provocative new book?
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By Amy Goodman — Bell’s palsy. It hit suddenly a month ago. I had just stepped off a plane in New York, and my friend noticed the telltale sagging lip. It felt like Novocain. I raced to the emergency room. The doctors prescribed a weeklong course of steroids and antivirals. The following day it got worse. I had to make a decision: Do I host “Democracy Now!,” our daily news broadcast, on Monday?
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By Elliot D. Cohen — The “Last Days of Democracy” author warns that Congress is about to aid the Bush administration with its Orwellian plans by granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications giants for helping the government spy on Americans.
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By Marie Cocco — Though time will certainly tell, the Bush administration so far has not yet surpassed that of Richard Nixon’s in its contempt for a free press and its unrelenting war on the truth.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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If you’re a Truthdig reader, chances are you’re also a BBC News reader. For 10 years now, the BBC has done an excellent job of bringing online news to the world. To celebrate, it has pulled together important online front pages from that period, ranging from the Clinton impeachment to 9/11 to the hanging of Saddam.
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AP photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Bill Boyarsky — America’s political correspondents are enchanted with Clinton, but their passion might fade when voters start asking her hard questions about her hawkish view of the Iraq war.
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FEMA has admitted that it was probably a mistake to hold a press conference without members of the press. On Tuesday the agency, perhaps trying to get a jump on the kind of negative publicity it received after Hurricane Katrina, stuffed a press briefing with its own employees, who lobbed softballs such as “Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?”
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AP photo / Dima Gavrysh
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Ed Rampell —
As a follow-up to his “Hollywood 10” retrospective essay, and in honor of Friday’s 60th-anniversary commemoration of 1947’s “Hollywood Fights Back!” radio program, author Ed Rampell shows how history has (unfortunately) repeated itself of late in America’s entertainment and news media.
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By Ellen Goodman — Those who went to the Values Voter Summit left without a candidate to call their own. But the lack of a golden boy isn’t their only problem: There are signs of ideological rigor mortis among the old guard.
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By Marie Cocco — Triangulation aside, when it comes to the phony Social Security crisis, Hillary Clinton has stood up for the truth: There isn’t one.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Truthdig’s hometown is surrounded by wildfires, and although we were closely observing the developing situation, we were surprised to see the world react with such intense interest. It seems everyone from Pravda to the BBC has tuned in to watch movie stars’ homes being threatened by the flames.
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By Eugene Robinson — George Clooney is a big-time movie star. Cate Blanchett is a big-time movie star. But Tyler Perry’s new movie did more box office on its opening weekend than Clooney’s and Blanchett’s new movies combined—which makes Perry a big-time movie star, too, and also a phenomenon.
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For years, we’ve been hearing about big companies increasingly taking over the American news business, as well as media execs jumping into bed with government higher-ups, but this report about the federal government and major corporations actually producing and planting prepackaged “news” stories in outlets around the country raises the Big Brother threat level to at least Orange.
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By Eugene Robinson — The cliché does not mean much anymore. It’s time to start seeing African-Americans as Americans, period.
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By Marie Cocco — Hillary Clinton must have the opposition running scared if the latest strategy to derail her campaign is to deny women the right to vote.
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By Will Durst — The creator will campaign for a third-party candidate if Rudy locks up the GOP nomination. How do we know this? Well, it seems God whispered in the ears of certain evangelical leaders.
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israellobbybook.com
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The editor of the provocative new bestseller by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt asks the authors (pictured above) whether their book is good for the Jews and good for America.
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By Joe Conason — The controversy over what Rush Limbaugh meant when he uttered the phrase “phony soldiers” last week isn’t just another broadcast sideshow. As the political power of conservatism declines, the symbolic authority of figures such as Limbaugh is likewise shrinking.
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wonkette.com
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The Supreme Court, arguably the most powerful institution in our democracy, manages to fly a bit under the radar. Take, for example, the $1.5-million advance Rupert Murdoch paid Clarence Thomas to write a book. Conflict of interest, perhaps? The Nation’s Jon Wiener thinks so.
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By Andy Borowitz — Fresh on the heels of its reality show “Kid Nation,” in which children are sent to perform hard labor on a ranch with no adult supervision, CBS announced today that it is readying a reality show in which children will be sent to the federal detention camp at Guantanamo.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The GM-UAW labor contract could prove to be a victory of innovative thinking in the private sector. Now politicians should be clear on how they would attack the deepening problems that confront working people.
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Surely TV news pundits are influential in shaping public opinion, but do they really know anything? The Onion satirizes expert opinion by asking about the situation in Nigeria, as opposed to, say, Hillary’s neckline.
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AP photo / Gerald Herbert
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By Scott Ritter — If you think the Iraq war is a disaster, just wait until we start bombing Iran. The countdown to another war is both real and terrifying, Ritter argues, and, distasteful though it may seem, it won’t be stopped so long as Iraq holds on to the spotlight.
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By Ellen Goodman — When they write the cultural history of childhood in 21st-century America, I hope they leave room for a few unkind words about “Kid Nation.”
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AP photo / Susan Walsh
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Congressman Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, claims his panel’s attempts to look into Blackwater USA’s recent controversial actions in Iraq were derailed by the State Department. The State Department, on the other hand, denies blocking the investigation and says Waxman’s charge is the result of a “misunderstanding.”
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By Amy Goodman — As world leaders gather this week to address the United Nations General Assembly, President Bush’s refusal to negotiate on the two key issues of our day—war and global warming—has been stunning. And the media haven’t helped.
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By Eugene Robinson — Some might dismiss Dan Rather’s $70 million lawsuit against CBS as an attempt to repair his legacy, but it is also a much-needed (and knowledgeable) indictment of the danger of corporate media.
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AP Photo / Ric Feld
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Ever wonder what Ted Turner might be thinking about, say, Mideast politics, or how to squeak by on just “a couple billion” dollars? How about bunnies? If so, you’re in luck—this GQ interview with the ever-rowdy media mogul has it all, along with a rather startling spat with his publicist captured on the record.
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By Eugene Robinson — How did thousands of African-Americans come to descend on the town of Jena, La., on Thursday for a march and rally that brought to mind the heady days of the civil rights movement? The answer says as much about what has changed over the past half-century as it says about what hasn’t.
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AP Photo / Charles Dharapak
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By Scott Ritter — Katie Couric’s “entertainment-as-news” excursion to Baghdad, Ritter argues, is symptomatic of an America that consistently refuses to properly identify and address the real problems in Iraq.
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The Washington Post has three excellent reports that refute the rosy depiction of Iraq by so many politicians and pundits these days. After such a lousy prewar performance for the media in general, it’s nice to see one of the most mainstream of outlets dig in and investigate what’s really going on while the administration tries to pass off hype as genuine progress.
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AP Photo / Hasan Sarbakhshian
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By Chris Hedges — By all indications, the United States is about to attack Iran. Expect a regional catastrophe to follow, propelled by impotent diplomacy and inane media.
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If the muted response from his normally rambunctious audience was any indication, Bill Maher might have crossed a line on Friday, but he deserves praise for confronting a senseless taboo, exploring the death of Princess Di without the usual beatification and self-flagellation.
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Director Brian DePalma says “Pictures are what will stop the war,” and he’s out to prove it. His new film “Redacted,” which focuses on the brutal rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the killing of her family, uses graphic images from the war that he says media outlets have been too timid to show.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — One of the many lessons we should have learned from Hurricane Katrina is that Americans care about the suffering of other Americans, no matter how much the media would rather cover glitz and scandal.
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AP Photo / Craig Molenhouse
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By Larry Gross — The not-so-secret gay sex life of Merv Griffin has once again raised the specter of the obituary outing, not to mention the power of prejudice to intimidate even the rich and famous.
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eonline.com
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Beginning Monday, “The Daily Show” will air a series of reports from Iraq—the real Iraq—taped during a USO outing by “senior military analyst” and former decorated Marine Maj. Rob Riggle (pictured). Along with a field producer and writer for the show, Riggle ditched the green screen for a five-day stint titled “Operation Silent Thunder: The Daily Show in Iraq.”
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How the IRS’ Nonprofit Division Got So Dysfunctional
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