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Caught in the anxious middle of the Knight Ridder deal are employees of the twelve newspapers scattered around the country, which have just changed ownership and will be changing hands again sometime soon. David Hanners, general assignment reporter at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, joins Bob to discuss daily journalism when you’re being bought and sold and bought again.
For years, even when it was a near monopoly, AT&T managed to do the impossible with a surprising degree of success. It managed to convince us that a huge corporation could be our friend. But despite its pioneering command of public relations, its omnipotence was never far from view. Claude Fischer, author of A Social History of the Telephone, and Lily Tomlin's erstwhile operator Ernestine guide Brooke through a century of the long arm of Ma Bell.
Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's Countdown, has a weekly segment called "the worst person in the world," and frequently awards that honor to Bill O'Reilly, of Fox's O'Reilly Factor. Recently, O'Reilly cracked. He said anyone who spoke Olbermann's name on his program would hear from Fox security and apparently, at least one caller to his radio program already has. We gathered actual tape of the feuding hosts, set their voices to music, and yes, embellished the tale, just a little.
Mid-term elections are starting to heat up and the press is in hot pursuit of themes around which they can organize their coverage - for example, "Democrats in disarray" or "Republicans mired in scandal." But those seem a little tired. So the media have been quick to pounce on a fresh narrative being offered - an expanding field of veterans, running for Congress as Democrats. Brooke talks with political onlookers on both sides of the spectrum about this "Band of Brothers."
The American oil industry is funneling some of its massive 2005 profits into a P.R. campaign designed to play down the size of the profits, and play up the industry's good will. First, Bob talks with Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the group behind the ad campaign. Then, with Tyson Slocum, from the advocacy group Public Citizen, who says big oil is pulling a fast one on the American public.
The White House spokesperson has briefed the press live on TV regularly since 1998 when Clinton Press Secretary Mike McCurry allowed CNN's cameras go live. The result is that the public can watch as reporters do the dirty work of trying to get answers from the spokesperson. Theatrics are a necessary part of the process but do reporters play it up for the camera? First, Bob talks with veteran ABC newsman Sam Donaldson. Then, Brooke talks with Mike McCurry.
The late media critic Neil Postman argued in his seminal book "Amusing Ourselves to Death," that as TV prevailed over the printed word, it impaired our ability to make sense of a world of information. Jay Rosen writes the blog, PressThink and is a professor at NYU, where Postman taught. Rosen counts Postman as both mentor and hero and joins Brooke to discuss "Amusing Ourselves to Death," now in a new edition, as ever more relevant.
Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi has just completed a three year stint reporting from Iraq. She's written front page dispatches, but may be best remembered for a 2004 personal email in which she described the near-impossible conditions for doing journalism there. When the email went public, it became a touchstone for debate about Iraq war coverage. Fassihi joins Bob for an exit interview.
