Before Occupy, There Was People’s Park

Paul Von Blum / Truthdig Jun 28, 2019 A new book about the 1969 battle in Berkeley is striking in its implications for a military takeover in an ostensibly democratic society. Dig deeper ( 8 Min. Read )

Sean Spicer Reaches Orwellian Levels of ‘Duckspeak’ With His News Briefings

Todd Gitlin / Truthdig Jun 3, 2017 The vocabulary and speaking style of Donald Trump's press secretary resembles a form of speech from George Orwell's "1984." Dig deeper ( 4 Min. Read )

Frightbart

By Todd Gitlin / Moyers & Company Mar 15, 2017 The view from Steve Bannon’s propaganda site will scare the bejeezus out of you, which is its point. Dig deeper ( 5 Min. Read )

It’s Time to Wade Into the Swamp of Right-Wing Media to Understand All the Twisted ‘Truths’

By Todd Gitlin / Moyers & Company Jan 11, 2017 Large numbers of Americans have come to accept this propaganda as a baseline for what they call reality. Dig deeper ( 8 Min. Read )

Trumping the Times

By Todd Gitlin / Moyers & Co. Nov 29, 2016 How much more garbage must spew from Trump Tower before one of our crucial newspapers calls a halt to tiptoeing around? Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Bad Faith Comes From More Than One Corner

By Todd Gitlin / Moyers & Company Nov 23, 2016 Defeat has many parents, and buck-passing cannot be the national pastime. Dig deeper ( 6 Min. Read )

The ‘Truth’ According to Donald Trump

By Todd Gitlin / Moyers & Company Jun 15, 2016 In Trump's world, everything's a conspiracy and reality's turned upside down. Dig deeper ( 7 Min. Read )

As the Globe Warms, So Does the Climate Movement

By Todd Gitlin, TomDispatch Oct 2, 2014 It would be premature to suggest that this movement will soon win anything, or that it will succeed in curtailing the burn-off of fossil fuels and all the extinctions and acidifications that will follow. But the People’s Climate March does suggest that something commensurate with the magnitude of the global climate crisis has come into being. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

How to Reverse a Slow-Motion Apocalypse

By Todd Gitlin, TomDispatch Nov 22, 2013 Corporations and governments promote the burning of fossil fuels, which means the dumping of its waste product, carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere where, in record amounts, it heats the planet. This is not an oversight; it is a business model. Dig deeper ( 9 Min. Read )

The Wonderful American World of Informers and Agents Provocateurs

By Todd Gitlin, TomDispatch Jun 28, 2013 American high-tech surveillance is not the only kind around. There’s also the lower tech, up-close-and-personal kind that involves informers and sometimes government-instigated violence, which major news organizations have not put together in a way that gives us an overview of the phenomenon. Dig deeper ( 19 Min. Read )

Is the Press Too Big to Fail?

By Todd Gitlin, TomDispatch Apr 25, 2013 When you think about the crisis of journalism, including the loss of advertising and the shriveled newsrooms -- there were fewer newsroom employees in 2010 than in 1978, when records were first kept -- also think of anesthetized watchdogs snoring on Wall Street while the Arctic ice cap melts. Dig deeper ( 12 Min. Read )

Columbia Sociologist on Past Social Movements and More

Staff / Truthdig Oct 22, 2011 Sociologist Todd Gitlin, former president of Students for a Democratic Society and a Columbia University professor, compares OWS to other American uprisings, discusses the media's early coverage of the protests and considers the fate of the movement's signature leaderless form. (more) Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )