The Senate Commerce Committee held hearings last week on the Truth in Broadcasting Act (S 967). This is a piece of sorely needed legislation whose necessity is downright depressing. The bill targets the Video News Releases (VNRs) that various departments of the federal government have produced and distributed to news broadcasters. The VNRs carried no [...]
Monthly Archives: October 2005
Oct 26
Rep. Hinchey Goes To Bat For Media Reform
Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), has long been a leader in the fight for media reform. He is a founder of the Future of American Media caucus in the House, and he is a sponsor of the Media Ownership Reform Act of 2005 (MORA). In an article for The Hill last week, he reiterated the need [...]
Oct 18
Judy Miller's Propaganda Mistaken For Journalism
The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) gave Judy Miller their First Amendment Award in Las Vegas today. The award was given in conjunction with her appearance on a panel addressing The Reporter’s Privilege Under Siege. Miller’s selection would seem to be an unusual choice of a journalist whose recent work has been widely discredited and [...]
Oct 18
Robert Novak Is Losing His Grip!
Robert Novak, demonstrating his legendary prescience in all things political, is now challenging The National Enquirer for top credibility status. From Novak’s 10/16 column: Possible indictment not keeping Rove from fund-raising While colleagues express concern that presidential adviser Karl Rove could be indicted in the CIA leak case, he continues to be scheduled for private [...]
Oct 16
New York Times On It’s Plamegate Reporter: Judy Who?
After months of silence, The New York Times has finally published an article about their reporter who spent nearly three months in jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury. Judith Miller claims she was protecting a confidential source and defending the principle of freedom of the press. In fact she was protecting herself [...]
Oct 10
Grown By America’s Banana Republicans
By keeping a five minute vote open for almost an hour, the Republican majority in the House managed to coerce just enough weak-livered Repubs to pass another giveaway to oil companies masquerading as an energy bill. This is reminiscent of the debacle of November 2003, when the Prescription Drug bill was held open for 3 [...]
Oct 04
Tom DeLay Spins Like A Top
There’s been a lot of misinformation circulating in the media regarding Tom DeLay’s recent indictments. In the spirit of fairness, I thought I would give him equal time: “I didn’t know anything about the perfectly legal activity that I didn’t engage in while not leading my PAC that I didn’t have anything to do with [...]
Oct 04
Former Fox Reporter Sees The Light
David Shuster, currently a reporter for MSNBC, is coming clean about his former bosses at Fox. …there wasn’t a tradition or track record of honoring journalistic integrity. I found some reporters at Fox would cut corners or steal information from other sources or in some cases, just make things up. Management would either look the [...]
Oct 04
Propaganda Marches On
Once again, the Bush administration has been found to be guilty of violating the law against covert propaganda. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) made the ruling in response to the Department of Education’s initiative to pay more than $200,000.00 to Armstrong Williams to help promote the No Child Left Behind Law. “This qualifies as the [...]
