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In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the National Association of Black Journalists called on media outlets to refer to people fleeing New Orleans as "evacuees," rather than "refugees." Many complied, but others, after consulting their dictionaries and style guides, decided the new term lacked the scope befitting a national catastrophe. Bob examines the debate and discovers that even in the midst of a crisis, language can be critical.
It didn't take long for people trying to figure out what went wrong in New Orleans to start pointing fingers at the White House. In response, President Bush and his supporters have attempted to deflect blame back onto the blamers themselves. Bob reflects on the phrase "blame game" as the latest attempt at semantic alchemy by a president under siege.
As authorities scrambled in the wake of Katrina, media technology was being harnessed by ordinary citizens to assist the displaced. With no official mandate, central organizing principle, or pay, Internet users compiled lists, message boards, and lists of lists and message boards. BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis tells Bob about Recovery 2.0, an effort to consolidate the relief efforts and prepare better for the future.
From A Streetcar Named Desire to Down By Law, what many of us think about when we think about New Orleans is a result of its ongoing portrayal in movies. David Lee Simmons, culture critic for the city's alternative daily, The Gambit, talks with Brooke about the cinematic depictions of the old Big Easy that will endure as the city attempts to rebuild.
This summer, the highest-rated prime time show in New York City wasn't CSI or Law & Order. It was La Madrasta, a telenovela produced in Mexico. The telenovela form has been a TV staple south of our border for 50 years, and recently has emerged as the vehicle Spanish-language TV is riding to success in the north. Robert Huesca, a communications professor at Trinity University, tells Brooke that while the form is quite fixed, the content of telenovelas remains very much in flux.
It was back to the future for CBS this week, as the network launched a podcast version of "The Guiding Light," a soap opera first broadcast as a radio show 68 years ago. But even though soap operas may have started as audio-only, nowadays it's pretty clear they're dependent on the visuals. And so we got to wondering, what will these things sound like, anyway?
Last month, a Canadian named Suresh Joachim entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest continuous rocking in a rocking chair. But he told a reporter that the record he most wants to break is the one held by Ashrita Furman... for the most number of Guinness records broken. In the spirit of superlatives, OTM breaks its own record for age-of-piece-reaired, and presents Bob's 12-year-old profile of Ashrita Furman.
Highlights from Past ShowsEarly in the week, discussions began online about the way much of the TV coverage of Katrina's impact was ignoring obvious questions of race and class. On Wednesday, Slate media critic Jack Shafer accused TV news of skirting one of the most visually clear aspects of the story – that blacks in New Orleans were more directly hurt than whites. Mark Jurkowitz, media analyst for the Boston Phoenix speaks to Bob about the questions left largely unasked and unanswered.
It might have seemed like a straightforward business proposition, triggered by demographics - a new broadsheet targeted at the sizeable black community of east Gainesville, Florida. But when news got out that the New York Times was the parent company behind the Gainesville Guardian, accusations started flying that the Times was taking money out of the pockets black publishers. Bob talks to one critic, National Newspaper Publishers Association editor-in-chief George Curry. He also hears from the Guardian's publisher, Jim Doughton.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
