News Media

Ever since I read the provocatively hilarious book WHERE THE GIRLS ARE, I've enjoyed Susan Douglas' commentary. Here, she comments on how banal "horse race coverage" of the presidential "election" (and I use the term loosely) remains.

News You Can Lose
By Susan J. Douglas

Read the whole article here.

Remember how Dubya got kid-glove treatment during the 2000 debates, while the press incessantly ridiculed Al Gore? Well, here we go again.

From ACME Co-President Rob Williams on YouTube:

"What happens when you bring together 10 young Jordanians and 10 young Vermonters for eight months of cross-cultural conversation, media education, leadership training, digital storytelling production, and reciprocal three-week home stays in both countries? The answer: so much. Take a look..."

Rob sez: Kudos to ACME partners John Stauber, Sheldon Rampton and Diane Farsetta at the Center for Media and Democracy for their cutting-edge work on this issue.

One might argue that most of what passes for "news" on television is "fake" - a small sliver of our daily reality extruded through a variety of epistemological, economic, and political filters like so much shredded wheat.

But the widespread use of VNRS (video news releases) smacks of propaganda of the highest order. Thanks to CMD, this debate, on the heels of FCC fines, seems like a step in the right direction.

The crux of Tom Regan's thesis (article below) is: "The reality in today's world of online journalism is that both old and new views count, and traditional journalists ignore this at their own peril."

He defines "new" news views as youth interests such as stories about the iPhone and "old" views as NY Times stories about the Iraq war. I see it as more than youth vs aged.

In the last couple of years, mainstream media has figured out that its future lies in part with figuring out how to engage youth with civic affairs and . . . the news (however the news evolves). Here's a column from the Waco, Texas, daily -- which is owned by Cox Communications of Atlanta, about what they're doing.
-- bill densmore

http://www.wacotrib.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/2007/09/30/093...
http://www.wacotrib.com/services/content/services/aboutus.html

HEADLINE: Ken Sury: From print to small screen
PUBLISHED: Sunday, September 30, 2007

Here's a question. Should the news try to be objective? There is no doubt that Olbermann is a brilliant, articulate, analytic genius whose passion tends to agree with mine, and I love him. But, should we evolve toward a news environment that is totally composed of competing one-sided shows (like Olbermann and O'Reilly)? That seems to be the direction we are heading.

Censored!
The Top 10 Big Stories American Mainstream Media Missed in the Past Year

Here are the top-10 most underreported or ignored stories of the past year, from ACME partner Project Censored.

Visit Project Censored for the complete list of 25.

And see ACME's home page for our Project Censored classroom guide - ways to use this annual book in your civics, journalism, social studies, communications, history, or language arts classroom.

1. Good-bye, habeas corpus

Youth media and literacy were key topics at Journalism That Matters: The DC Sessions," a gathering of more than 150 journalists, bloggers, educators and activists Aug. 7-8, 2007, in Washington, D.C. The Media Giraffe Project at UMass convened the two-day gathering as part of a year-long effort to establish "The Next Newsroom," -- a prototype news organization in a U.S. community that will be created from scratch.