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With a tentative ceasefire taking hold this week in Lebanon, Israel and Hezbollah were quick to blame the other side for the destruction, and disseminate propaganda to reinforce their claims. Their spinning reflected an anxiety that the first draft of history is often more than just a draft. Bob speaks with UC Irvine Middle East historian Mark LeVine about the lasting impacts of early media coverage
Commentators in the Arab media are proclaiming Hezbollah’s campaign a great victory for the Arab world. At the same time, there aren’t many echoes in the Western media of President Bush’s claim that Hezbollah was defeated. But Beirut’s Daily Star opinion editor Michael Young tells Bob that popular support for Hezbollah in Lebanon has not increased over the past month, and that this may have been a pyrrhic victory for the group.
On Thursday, one of the legal challenges to the NSA warrantless surveillance program scored a significant victory when a federal judge in Detroit deemed it unconstitutional. Bob speaks with law professor Jonathan Turley, who is spearheading a separate federal case against the program, about the implications of the decision.
Since Raul Castro took the helm in Cuba three weeks ago, the government has released next to nothing about Fidel’s condition, and denied visas to foreign journalists not already on the island. How are American news organizations coping with the information clampdown? We asked Dan Grech, Americas correspondent for American Public Media’s Marketplace, to find out.
Over the past 20 years, the U.S. has spent half a billion dollars to beam anti-Castro propaganda into the homes of Cubans via Radio and TV Martí. Earlier this year, Congress boosted the stations’ budget, and in the midst of Fidel’s convalescence, the stations have increased their programming hours. All this despite the fact that hardly anybody in Cuba is tuning in. Bob talks to Penn State communications professor John Nichols about the broadcasting boondoggle.
Listeners weigh in on our stories about prosecuting leakers and the persistence of conspiracies.
Want an all-expense-paid two-night stay at a luxury hotel, with free round-trip airfare, spending cash, and a private screening of the latest Hollywood movie? Get invited to a press junket. Last month, freelance film critic Eric Snider did just that for Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center,” and then blogged about it on his website. He talks with Bob about the experience and the fallout.
Almost every Hollywood movie ad includes a few endorsements attributed to one or more film critics – a process often requiring as much imagination, and editing, as the movie itself. A few years back, Bob took a closer look at the phenomenon of movie blurbs, and filed this report.
Highlights from Past ShowsConnecticut Democrat Ned Lamont’s primary victory on Tuesday has been widely heralded as the first major win for the online liberal advocacy community. But how much credit do the so-called “net-roots” really deserve? Brooke speaks with Internet theorist and NYU telecom professor Clay Shirky about the political web in its age of adolescence.
What does George W. Bush have in common with John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Harry Truman, JFK, and Lyndon Johnson? Each is a wartime president who took measures to quell dissent at home in the name of an American victory. And all of them, according to Geoffrey R. Stone’s book Perilous Times, went too far. Stone and Bob discuss what happens to the First Amendment when the nation is at war.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
