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Much attention has been paid to three provisions of The Patriot Act set to expire this year, but civil libertarians say the focus should be on a lesser noticed portion of the law having to do with National Security Letters. Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, says the NSL's are often misused.
In an attempt to keep the public interested in the vast amount of information about the government's interrogation practices and rendition policies, the ACLU recently launched The Torture Report. The report's chief author, Larry Siems, hopes to draw people in by writing an accessible story about what some call "enhanced interrogation" but most simply call torture.
According to press freedom advocates, journalists in Italy are now only "partly free." In recent weeks, a petition protesting government control of the media has garnered 450,000 signatures, and protesters plan to march in Rome this weekend. The target: Italy’s media mogul, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Reporter Megan Williams has the story.
This week at the Distracted Driving Summit, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that federal employees will be banned from texting while driving. New York Times reporter Matt Richtel says that, despite only recent attention, the dangers of using cell phones while driving have long been known.
Conventional wisdom says that the Internet has democratized politics by giving a direct voice to citizens. And while the bar for publishing - via blogs, podcasts and YouTube videos - has never been lower, there’s a difference between speaking and being heard. The Myth of Digital Democracy author Matthew Hindman explains.
What do you get when you cross an fMRI machine with the movie industry? Neurocinema. MindSign co-founder Philip Carlsen and neurologist Dr. David Hubbard explain how their brain scan research may help directors give the audience what it wants.
This week marks the 50th anniversary of Rod Serling’s "The Twilight Zone." Serling used the sci-fi genre as a tool to tell larger stories of morality, says Larry Kassan, founder of the Rod Serling Video Festival. He has also influenced Hollywood writers and producers, including J.J. Abrams, creator of the television shows "Lost" and "Fringe." Abrams says that as a boy he would sometimes pretend to be sick to stay home from school and watch "The Twilight Zone."
Highlights from Past Shows
Washington is paying attention to the newspaper crisis. The president has even weighed in. But some worry that any government help would create a conflict of interest. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), sponsor of The Newspaper Revitalization Act, and Jim Moroney, publisher of The Dallas Morning News discuss what role, if any, the government should play in saving newspapers.
September 18th is the tercentenary of Samuel Johnson, whose Dictionary of the English Language was one of the first and most influential. His format – with head words, etymologies and sample sentences – remains unchallenged. But his standard – what dictionaries stand for – has been undergoing a slow but inexorable evolution, as OTM’s Mike Vuolo reports.
On the Media is funded by The Bydale Foundation, The Ford Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Overbrook Foundation.
