When news photographers point and shoot at the White House they are casting a journalistic eye on the scene. Conversely, when the White House offers a handout photo, we see only what the White House puts in the frame. Susan Walsh is the president of the White House News Photographers Association. She searched through archives and determined that in five years of the Bush presidency there had been more than 500 photo handouts…compared with 100 over the entire eight years of the Clinton Administration. Walsh talks with Bob about her findings and the meaning of the image in making history.
Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and Cisco were called to Capitol Hill on Wednesday, accused of collaborating with a repressive regime, namely China. These modern, forward-looking companies are not used to being pegged as the bad guys – Google’s unofficial slogan is “don’t be evil.” But with people being jailed because Yahoo gave information to Chinese police, and blogs shut down by Microsoft at the request of Chinese officials, these companies face a profound, moral dilemma. On The Media’s Jessica Smith reports on the real costs of doing big business.
If China can limit the reach of American media companies, it can completely quash its own recalcitrant party-run publications. In late January, the Propaganda Department shut down Freezing Point, a popular weekly insert to the China Youth Daily. Although the supplement was known for taboo reporting on farmer protests and other social unrest, New York Times Beijing Bureau Chief Joseph Kahn tells Bob that it wasn't one of those stories that put the freeze on Freezing Point.
With revelations about the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program come questions about the role of U.S. phone companies in complying with requests to pry. Morton Halperin served in the Johnson, Nixon and Clinton administrations and has experienced wiretapping firsthand. He explains to Brooke how government surveillance and the telecommunications industry have grown up together.
Last year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas relinquished direct control of the state media. This week, with Hamas preparing to take over in Parliament, he changed his mind.
Every Sunday, millions of Americans tune into the big three networks’ Sunday talk shows to hear from some of the nation’s most powerful. Considering the balance of power in Washington, it’s no surprise that these days, the guest list tends to skew right. But according to a new report from liberal watchdog Media Matters for America, conservatives and Republicans dominated the shows even before Bush took office. Brooke speaks with Paul Waldman, who authored the report.
"CSA: The Confederate States of America" opened this week. The film imagines an America in which the South won the Civil War. Under the Confederate States of America, Abraham Lincoln is captured – in blackface – trying to escape to Canada and slavery is the law of the land. It all plays out in what looks like a Ken Burns documentary, complete with slow pans of still photos, and talking head historians. Bob speaks with filmmaker Kevin Wilmott about this weirdly plausible version of American history.
Highlights from Past Shows
The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one of the most difficult to cover and controversial-when-you-do stories out there. Media watchdog groups are common on both sides of the divide, waiting for news organizations to use a word or image that appears to favor the other side. What about the Israeli and Palestinian journalists, working for the local media, covering a conflict that hits close to home? Brooke talks to local reporters in the West Bank and Israel about how they cover the conflict…and each other.
Rarely does a debate over free speech include as many people, in as many different countries, as has the Danish "cartoon controversy." In the months after a series of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed were published in Denmark, Muslims in Europe and the Middle East have responded with boycotts and angry demonstrations. This week the tension escalated, after several European newspapers reprinted the images. Bob discusses the flap with Susan Caskie of The Week.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
