Tag Archives: public interest

Limbaugh brays on: louder, emptier, closer to the end

Limbaugh is slowly dying, like the dinosaur that he is, bit by bit. As sponsors escape, he doesn’t need any help from the FCC. Thus, I disagree with calls that he be fired. Just watching him losing advertisers is a joy in itself – the beginning of the end.

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The Komen "reversal": a crushing failure of America's newsrooms

Yesterday I attempted to shed a little light on the PR crisis strategy behind the Komen Foundation’s sudden Planned Parenthood “backtracking.” Contrary to what Komen’s highly-paid PR crisis hacks and gullible headline writers at newsdesks around the nation would ask you to believe, The Susan G. Komen Foundation does NOT promise to fund Planned Parenthood in […]

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NASA, American exceptionalism, and me: older, and less viable

Fourth in a series As a child turning teen in the late 1950s, the black-and-white RCA in the living room received only three channels … well, four, but we didn’t watch PBS. So I read. Newspapers, of course (after Dad finished sports and Mom finished news). And books. The library was only two blocks away, […]

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News-of-the-World-gate: the empire strikes back

This just keeps getting better and better. Alexander Cockburn is right—this is just like Watergate. The steady drip, drip, drip of bad news. The iconic hate figure, a man who pretty much singlehandedly created a global media empire against very significant odds, which in any other context might be seen as plucky and admirable in […]

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Trouble in Murdochland redux

A couple of months ago we noted that things were not going all that well in Murdochland, what with investigations heating up over allegations that phone hacking–that delightful pastime of hacking into someone’s voicemail so you can read and/or hear their messages—was far more pervasive than anyone had guessed. Or, certainly, than Murdoch and his […]

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The Fourth four years later: Nothing’s changed

As I predicted four years ago on the Fourth of July, little has changed. This year’s fireworks and barbecues offer only a brief respite from the problems of the nation, how they are worsening, and how those who are supposed to address them remain mere chanters of their respective ideologies. Four years ago, I predicted […]

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Haste, cost erode editing of online and mobile news

In 1976, I was a general-assignment reporter of limited experience and minimal accomplishment. So my editor kindly fired me, then said: “Now get your ass up on the copy desk where you belong.” I knew little about copy editing. So I asked my newsroom godfather: “Neil, what do copy editors do?” He looked over the […]

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FCC: Move to digital hasn't improved local news reporting

From the “The Feds Are The Last To Know Department”: The Federal Communications Commission released a study today reporting that an “explosion of online news sources in recent years has not produced a corresponding increase in reporting, particularly quality local reporting …” The study, titled “Information Needs of Communities” takes a broad but somewhat shallow […]

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Dr. Death avoids suicide, chooses natural causes

by Jane Briggs-Bunting Jack Kevorkian (aka Dr. Death) died early Friday in a Michigan hospital from complication of pulmonary thrombosis, not suicide. He was 83. He was frail and failing, weighing around 75 lbs. It was breaking news on Detroit’s local TV stations and within minutes spread to the national media. Physician-assisted suicide’s most prominent […]

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If a news story claims knowlege of public opinion, test the claim

When a news story claims certainty in expressing public opinion — or uses sources that claim such — readers should be wary. Such is the case with a Friday NPR story that commingled analysis, reporting, and commentary (without a commentary label) about the impact of “tough economic news” on President Obama’s re-election prospects. Some phrasing […]

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Presidential polls: Much ado about nothing 17 months early

Egads! News flash from pollster Gallup Inc.: PRINCETON, NJ — Mitt Romney (17%) and Sarah Palin (15%) now lead a smaller field of potential Republican presidential candidates in rank-and-file Republicans’ preferences for the party’s 2012 nominee. Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, and Herman Cain essentially tie for third, with Cain registering 8% support in his initial […]

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City Forward & Other Technologies Change Our Understanding Of Our Environs

<by Rafael Noboa y Rivera I’ve written in the past–whether it was about IBM’s Smarter Cities Challenge or City Forward projects–about the different ways that cities can serve as laboratories of government and how cool it is that these projects can be part of this process. Given their size and immediacy in our lives, they […]

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An open letter to President Barack Obama: congratulations – now, how will you spend your political capital?

_____ TRANSCRIPT

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The American Parliament: our nation's 10 political parties

Part two in a series. Forgive me for abstracting and oversimplifying a bit, but one might argue that American politics breaks along the following 10 lines: Social Conservatives Neocons Business Conservatives Traditional Conservatives (there’s probably a better term, but I’m thinking of old-line Western land and water rights types) Blue Dog Democrats New Democrats Progressives

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Conservatives, Progressives and the future of representative democracy: what would an American Parliament look like?

Part one in a series. A little thought experiment for a Monday morning… Over the past few years I have tried to make as much sense as I could out of the American political landscape. By nature, I’m a theoretically minded thinker, and the point of these exercises has been to try and articulate the […]

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Presidential preference polls: how media create a fake horse race

You can smell that foul odor wafting through the air — presidential politics. Wannabees who won’t say they wannabee are peddling books. Sharply dressed and coiffed “I haven’t decided yet” politicians descend on Iowa and New Hampshire. Explorations of exploratory committees are explored. Websites and Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts multiply like lobbyists at […]

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