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After September 11th, The New York Times created "Portraits of Grief," biographical sketches containing personal anecdotes supplied by the victim's family. The full accounting of casualties from Hurricane Katrina will likely be months away, but for writers of the New Orleans Times-Picayune the process of reckoning with the dead has already begun. Editor Jim Amoss talks with Brooke about how to portray the lives lost.
Al-Jazeera correspondent Taysir Allouni covered the U.S. war against the Taliban and the Coalition invasion of Iraq, and even secured an interview with Osama Bin Laden shortly after the 9/11 attacks. But did he get too close to his sources? A Spanish court convicted Allouni this week of collaborating with al Qaeda. James Badcock, who covered the trial for Spain's El País, tells Bob the case was largely circumstantial.
Brooke muses on the sudden release of Judith Miller from a Virginia detention center, after 85 days behind bars for refusing to testify in the long-running CIA leak investigation. Did Miller waver?
It seems that every time we turn a corner here at On the Media, the Chinese government has passed new restrictions on internet communication within its borders. Bob discusses the latest - and potentially most effective - attempt to curb internet speech with Xiao Qiang, Director of the Berkeley China Internet Project.
Last year, Google announced its intention to digitize millions of books from the collections of five major libraries in the U.S. and Britain. Last week, the Authors Guild announced its intention to sue the internet behemoth for copyright infringement. Is the so-called Google Print Library project fair use or theft? Bob puts the question to NYU communications professor Siva Vaidhyanathan.
In our March 5th, 2004 show Brooke did an interview with Joseph Medawar and Alison Heruth-Waterbury, executive producer and costar of a new - or so we believed - television drama titled "DHS: The Series," premised around derring-do inside the Department of Homeland Security. Seventy investors, $5 million and a few well-chosen lies later, turns out the two would-be TV entrepreneurs were a fraud.
Whether browsng our website, listening to OTM on the radio or enjoying our podcast, you're engaged in media consumption - an activity that takes more of your time than eating or sleeping. That according to "Middletown Media Studies II," a study of media behavior conducted by Ball State University's Center for Media Design. Bob Papper, co-author of the report, chats with Bob about some of the Center's findings.
At the height of the red scare in 1954, Edward R. Murrow excoriated Senator Joseph McCarthy on CBS. The episode is now depicted powerfully in George Clooney's movie "Good Night, and Good Luck." Among the crusading journalists then working at the network were Joe and Shirley Wershba, who consulted on the film and tell Brooke about the bygone days of smoke-filled newsrooms and courage on the air.
Highlights from Past ShowsEven as the death toll from Katrina continued to climb, TV news by Monday was already focused on Rita. The catastrophe of three weeks earlier infused the new Technicolor swirls with a sickening menace. But with or without Katrina, those satellite images were already well fixed in the TV lexicon. Bob discusses the history of hurricane reporting with weather historian David Laskin.
Supreme Court nominee John Roberts gave what most observers agreed was an ace performance on the Hill this week. But it often seemed that his Senate interrogators were trying to steal the spotlight for themselves. In the Republic's earlier days, was the process any less theatrical? Bob discusses the history of confirmation hearings with University of Connecticut law professor David Yalof.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
