TopicsOn The Media is produced by:
All lofty pretensions aside, American journalism was actually founded by a combination of crusading publishers, government leakers, and opinion writers who never used their real names. That’s according to the new book, Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism. Author (and Fox News host) Eric Burns speaks with Brooke about an early American press that didn’t care much about fairness, balance, or accuracy.
Perhaps the surest way to gauge “community standards” is to run afoul of them. That’s what Hustler publisher Larry Flynt did in Cincinnati in the 1970s. And in New Hampshire in the 1980s. And again in Ohio in the 90s. The story is chronicled in a new book by one of Hustler’s longest employees, Allan MacDonell, who worked his way up from deckhand to editorial captain of Larry Flynt Publications. He shares some recollections with Brooke.
Plagiarism is constantly in the news these days, most recently with the scandal surrounding Harvard student Kaavya Viswanathan’s How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got A Life. But, as we know, claims of literary plagiarism go back centuries. So why do people still get so worked up about it? Mike Pesca reflects on the past, present and future of plagiarism.
Five years ago this week On the Media was re-launched as a nationally distributed, pre-produced hour hosted by Bob and Brooke. To mark this auspicious occasion Brooke looks back at the earlier incarnations of the show and how the media criticism beat has grown up over these years. Media crit bigwigs Howard Kurtz and Mark Jurkowitz weigh in, as do former OTM hosts Brian Lehrer and Alex Jones.
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.
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.
Journalist and historian Alvin Josephy Jr. died this week at the age of 90. He's most remembered for his writing on Indians of the American West. But in his earlier life as a reporter, he was best known as one of very few correspondents recording the sounds of World War II for the people back home. WNYC archivist Andy Lanset plays some of Josephy's old tapes for Brooke.
On her recent trip to the Middle East, State Department Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes was angling for positive press coverage there. But her reviews on this side of the pond were mixed, at best. One critic suggested Hughes take a lesson from Vladimir Posner, the former Soviet spokesman who was a frequent guest on American TV in the 1980's. Brooke speaks with Posner about his views on public diplomacy and propaganda, 20 years later.
