Media

Don't do it. Don't tune in to this year's political conventions. For two decades, Americans have been wising up and increasingly tuning out those quadrennial made-for-television pageants that pass for participatory democracy. In 1976, roughly 22 million people watched Jimmy Carter receive his party's nomination. By contrast, four years ago, only 16 million viewers enjoyed the high jinks at the GOP convention. Over the years, declining interest has persuaded broadcast networks to scale back their coverage, and I think a lot of us suspect we… more

Journalists often forget that conflicts of interest may bias the opinions of their expert sources. Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee explain how, in an attempt to disentangle commercial messages from science, they have compiled a list of nearly 100 independent medical experts to whom reporters can turn.

Ho hum, another medical scandal in the news. Earlier this month US Senator Chuck Grassley announced his intention to investigate Alan Schatzberg, chairman of the psychiatry department at Stanford University and the incoming president of the American Psychiatric Association, about his… more

...But there is wide agreement that as the press corps diminishes, there is an increasing lack of quality state political information. "The importance of having an independent journalism that played a watchdog function is extremely important in keeping government honest and responsive," said Mark Paul, deputy director of the New America Foundation's California program... LINK

The policies set by the U.S. federal government on media ownership have tremendous impact on community media that traditionally has played an important role in fostering community awareness and involvement. For local municipalities and constituencies, the on-the-ground media ownership rules ultimately boils down to the question of how diverse the opinions expressed in local media will be and how representative of topical issues the local news will be.

The past twenty years have seen an unprecedented number of media mergers spanning… more

I ask Taylor Marsh whether she really keeps a gun to protect herself from her detractors, as she claims on her website. So, she escorts me into her bedroom to show the proof: an HK 9mm handgun. "I know how to use it," she says, pointing the weapon briefly in my direction (it's unloaded) before walking over to the other side of the bed. There, she holds up her husband's firearm, a Ruger Mini-14 rifle. "I am just reviled everywhere,"… more

Amid all the national debate over immigration, at least one firm consensus has emerged: Newcomers to the United States should learn English because it remains the lingua franca of our civic life. All three remaining presidential contenders say that the ability to speak English should be a requirement of U.S. citizenship. And last year, the immigrant governor of California told a convention of Latino journalists that immigrants should watch only English-language TV so they can understand the language and news… more

A few weeks ago, devoted listeners of National Public Radio were treated to an episode of the award-winning radio series The Infinite Mind called "Prozac Nation: Revisited." The segment featured four prestigious medical experts discussing the controversial link between antidepressants and suicide. In their considered opinions, all four said that worries about the drugs have been overblown.

The radio show, which was broadcast nationwide and paid for in part by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur… more

The easy knock on Tarleton Gillespie's Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture is that it seems dated. In walking the reader through the many issues and arguments of digital copyright, Gillespie focuses on three seminal attempts at Digital Rights Management -- the Recording Industry Association of America's failed Secure Digital Music Initiative, moviemakers' somewhat more successful efforts to lock down DVDs, and the major television networks' push to require "broadcast flags" on digital television signals. All… more

What would you do if a bully -- let's call him "Joey Giggles" -- kept snatching your ice-cream cone? OK, now what if Joey Giggles then told you, "If you pay me five bucks a month, I'll stop snatching your ice cream." Depending on how much you hate getting beaten up, and how much you love ice-cream cones, you might decide that caving in is the way to go. This is what's called a protection racket. It's also potentially the… more