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This week, Howard Stern, the self-proclaimed King of All Media, announced that he'll soon be leaving Infinity Broadcasting. In fact, he'll be leaving terrestrial broadcasting altogether and taking his act to Sirius Satellite Radio, where the FCC can't touch him. Sirius is betting $100 million a year on the deal in hopes that legions of listeners will follow Stern to pay radio. Bob discusses the deal with Scott McKenzie, editor in chief of Billboard's Radio Monitor.
Simon Haselock was the head of media development and regulation for the former Coalition Provisional Authority. He has been criticized for taking a heavy hand in creating the FCC-like Independent Media Commission to regulate the Iraqi media. Now Haselock is worried that all the checks and balances he had suggested will be undone with the creation by the Iraqi government of the Higher Media Commission which would regulate against, among other things, criticizing the new president. Bob gets the scoop.
In China, the bold and hugely successful tabloid, The Southern Metropolis Daily, made journalistic history last year when it affected actual change with one of its exposes. But good things come to an end and now the paper's crusading editor is sitting in jail awaiting charges. Meanwhile, two of his colleagues have been hit with 6 and 8 year sentences for what appear to be trumped up charges of corruption and bribery. Bob talks with Washington Post's Beijing bureau chief, Philip P. Pan.
Medical reporters play a vital role in documenting hospital practices, but the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA is making it increasingly difficult for them to do so. Andrew Holtz is a freelance medical reporter based in Portland, Oregon and was the former head of the Association of Health Care Journalists. He tells Brooke how HIPAA is giving hospitals the power to shut out journalists.
Critics of big media, thus far focused mainly on the FCC, have taken their fight to the FTC. MoveOn.org and Common Cause this week asked the Federal Trade Commission to strip Fox News of its "Fair and Balanced" slogan on the grounds that it amounts to false advertising. It's the latest in a full scale assault against the network by hardcore progressives. But might it also signal the advent of media issues in mainstream political discourse? Brooke talks to Democratic pollster Paul Maslin about how liberals are taking back a cause dominated for years by conservatives.
The disgruntlement that's boiled over at the Voice of America has been brewing for years. Since 9/11, many staffers have felt that the editorial firewall between the government and VOA's journalists has been steadily crumbling. Brooke speaks with former VOA Acting Director Myrna Whitworth, who was replaced after she defied the State Department and broadcast an interview with Taliban leader Mullah Omar in 2001.
When the Republicans take Manhattan later this summer, among the billboards they'll see in Times Square will be two with an antiwar message. That's the upshot of a deal this week between the activist group Project Billboard and Clear Channel Communications, who owns the billboards. Clear Channel had originally rejected the group's business on the grounds that its message was "inappropriate" for terror-rattled New Yorkers. Bob reflects on the growing power of the Davids who stand up to the Goliaths of media consolidation.
