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One year ago this week, an earthquake under the Indian Ocean triggered a massive tsunami that left huge swaths of death and destruction across South and South East Asia. In the Indonesian province of Aceh, everything was devastated, including the media. Bob talks to Kathleen Reen of Internews about how Aceh and its press are rebuilding, twelve months later.
2005 was a year of self-examination for the media. There were questions about journalistic accuracy and reporting styles, and about the reporting on Hurricane Katrina and the lead-up to war in Iraq. Craig Silverman tracks media mistakes on the website "Regret the Error," and joins Brooke for a recap of the year's inaccuracies, both serious and not-so.
Gulf War II was the first war that viewers had the ability to watch in real time, but it wasn't the first time reporters offered play-by-play narration from the battlefield. That distinction goes to World War II. The war reporting of Edward R. Murrow and his colleagues can again be heard on a CD companion to the book, "World War II on the Air." Co-author Mark Bernstein listens to some of the highlights with Bob.
Music has always been part of a soldiers' life in wartime, from the fife and drums of the Revolution to the rock and roll of Vietnam. Soldiers have made their own contributions over the years, and those serving in Iraq are no different. This time though, it's coming directly from the war zone. Brooke speaks with Sergeant Neal Saunders, who constructed his own studio and produced a brutally honest hip hop album while stationed in Sadr City, Baghdad.
In the 1940's, the Motion Picture Export Association, aka "the little State Department," went forth to sell the American way of life - not to mention American products - around the world. Toby Miller directs the Program in Film and Visual Culture at the University of California Riverside. He joins Brooke to discuss Hollywood-as-Imperialist, then and now.
You've heard him in dozens of movies, but you can't quite place his name. That's because he's not an actor, he's a sound effect. And among sound editors he's legendary. On the Media's David Serchuck reports.
Highlights from Past ShowsLast week, The New York Times reported that the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on American citizens for the past four years. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the government to conduct such operations, so long as it obtains a warrant from the FISA court. So why didn’t the NSA get the necessary paperwork? washingtonpost.com blogger William Arkin tells Brooke that the Administration offered two reasons: time and technology.
Even before Syria pulled its last soldier out of Lebanon, Gebran Tueni had been an outspoken critic of the occupation. This week, Tueni was killed by a car bomb, becoming the third prominent journalist in Lebanon to be targeted for assassination since Syria's withdrawal. Michael Young, opinion editor for Beirut's Daily Star, tells Bob why he thinks the Lebanese media still pose such a threat to Damascus.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
