Posts with the tag media

Double X Folds Back into Slate

Kay — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:53:11 EST

Double X, a "new kind of women's magazine" that also had a habit of publishing some anti-feminst screeds (although I'm still a big fan of many of Double X's writers, including Amanda Marcotte and Latoya Peterson), has announced that it will be folding back into Slate. Double X will become its "own section, with our XX Factor blog, articles, and special projects already in the works," announce editors Emily Bazelon and Hanna Rosin.

Double X didn't exactly get a warm reception among other popular feminist and women's sites when it first arrived. Ann Friedman, deputy editor at The American Prospect (and one of the editors at Feminsting.com), labeled the new site "an eerie resemblance to the women's pages of yore." Her main argument was that rather than having a site especially for women, top news magazines and blogs should just have women integrated into the product.

Well, it looks like Friedman will get her wish. Gawker noted when it reported the news, "As you can see from the logo, Double X never made it out of beta." It's not yet clear if the consolidation will result in layoffs. If it does, I'm sorry to hear it in an era where the number of media jobs are endlessly shrinking.

CNN Drops Dobbs

Kay — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:57:08 EST

In a huge victory for groups that were part of the Basta Dobbs campaign, news broke yesterday that Lou Dobbs was airing his last program for CNN. The coalition, which includes Latino and netroots organizations, asked CNN to fire Dobbs for his xenophobic and offensive comments relating to immigrants.

Campus Progress has covered Dobbs in our "Know Your Right-Wing Ideologues" section recently:

Feeding Dobbs’s xenophobic flames are his guests, who often have troublesome connections. Twice in 2004, Dobbs hosted guest Glenn Spencer, who has close ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group that has described African-Americans as “a retrograde species of humanity.”
In 2008, Dobbs broadcast from the “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” conference in Washington, D.C. This conference was organized by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a controversial anti-immigration organization whose founder, John Tanton, has made comments comparing immigrants to bacteria. Dobbs has frequently invited members of FAIR on his show, billing them as experts and citing them as reliable and objective sources. In fact, FAIR, along with two other leading anti-immigration groups, Center for Immigration Studies and NumbersUSA, were all founded by Tanton.
Between 1982 and 1994, FAIR received $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund, a “not-for-profit foundation established in 1937 to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences.” According to documents obtained by Paul Lombardo of The Albany Law Review through Truman State University, the Pioneer Fund’s founding president, eugenicist Harry Laughlin, declared that “‘the great mass of defectiveness’ swelled by immigrants, the feebleminded, and children of racial intermixture would swamp America.” Laughlin has also argued for the legal definition of the “American Race.”

The removal of Dobbs, despite the fact that his contract was supposed to expire in 2011, is certainly good news for the groups that fought Dobb's racially distasteful comments. Still, I've been observing the media world long enough to know that pundits who are asked to resign in shame simply find homes on new networks.

Magazine Shoot Closets Adam Lambert

C_Jefferson — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:22:55 EDT

Leave it up to Details magazine to make Gossip Girl look like an HRC ad.

Hot on the heels of Kay Steiger's commendation of GG's sultry male-on-male kissing scene, Details has released photos of its latest cover shoot with Adam Lambert, American Idol 2009's much ballyhooed runner up. The images are, shall we say, a bit queer.

Despite the fact that Lambert is gay, the pictures depict the 27-year-old kissing and caressing a nubile female model--because God forbid anything gay happen at a fashion shoot.

Sure, the spread dovetails nicely with Lambert's revelation that he "likes kissing women," but I can't help thinking it's fishy for Details to snap an openly gay cover model--a rarity for the mag--in positions that totally subjugate his homosexuality.

The Hypocrisy of Progressive Media on Health Care

C_Jefferson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:44:27 EDT

As the health care debate roils on in Congress, Americans everywhere continue turning to the media for facts and opinion about the bill currently in the forefront of US politics. But can your favorite news outlets be trusted to talk to you straight about health care reform?

Not necessarily, it would seem.

Perusing the job postings at Double X, Slate's "by women" news site, one comes across an editorial assistant position described thusly: "The position is an open-ended contract position, full-time, without benefits." That's right, no benefits for a full-time Double X employee, despite the fact that in the past the site has published more than a few articles in support of progressive health care reforms.

Double X's parent company, The Washington Post Company, also owns Newsweek, which in July ran a cover story by Ted Kennedy that extolled the merits of health care for all. Kennedy died five weeks later.

Elsewhere, at the left-leaning WNYC, a public and NPR-member radio station broadcasting from Manhattan, a recent hire who wishes to remain anonymous has confirmed that her job, too, comes without health benefits.

Even Gawker, which makes no bones about its distaste for conservative values, is rumored to have weak--or totally nonexistent--health care coverage for its many employees.

The hypocrisy is palpable. Call it the cognitive dissonance of the modern American progressive media outlet. One the one hand, the goal should be to give information you believe in to a deserving public. On the other: How to stay in business in an awful economy if every employee is treated fairly and given great benefits?

Krauthammer, revisited (by me)

Jake Blumgart — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:12:29 EDT

Why are you here?

This afternoon, New Republic senior editor Jonathan Chait dissected yet another dishonest column by the habitually dishonest Charles Krauthammer. Chait scores some good points, etc, but his post also raises an oft-repeated question. What the hell is Krauthammer’s name still doing on TNR’s masthead?

This point has been made before by more proficient bloggers than I, but it bears repeating. Krauthammer is only listed as a contributing editor, a purely honorary title. In fact, I can’t even remember when he last wrote for TNR. Presumably it was during the Micheal Kinsley/Hendrik Hertzberg reign, a time when praise was heaped upon the magazine by such lefty stalwarts as George Will, Norman Podhoretz and the National Review.

But today, TNR is a different, and much more consistently liberal, magazine—so they should take Krauthammer’s name off the masthead already.

Stop Media Harassment at the RNC Protests

pdelatorre — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:35:29 EDT

Trouble in the twin cities - police have arrested, detained, and harassed many independent journalists covering the protest on the RNC, including Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! You can read more about what happened here and here.

Free Press has just put out an action alert urging people to take action:

Stop the Arrests of Journalists. Sign the Letter.
Police in St. Paul arrested several journalists during protests of the Republican National Convention, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and an AP photographer as they were covering the demonstrations. Police also raided a meeting of the video journalists' group I-Witness with firearms drawn to arrest independent media, bloggers and videomakers. Arresting and detaining journalists for doing their jobs is a gross violation of free speech and freedom of the press. Journalists must be free to do their jobs without intimidation. Please click here to demand that press intimidation in the twin cities ceases immediately, and that charges against the arrested journalists are dropped.

Check out more action alerts here!

Who Placed Whose Hands?

Josh Eidelson — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:19:36 EDT

Hillary Clinton got some deserved criticism for her lecture about how "it took a President" to pass the Civil Rights Act (didn't Obama prove he values the role of the President when he started running to be the next one?). But Robert Caro's op-ed today reminds us she could have said something worse:

"Abraham Lincoln struck off the chains of black Americans," I have written, "but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy's sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life."

This isn't poetic - it's just offensive. Did LBJ tie African-Americans' shoes before they left the house to vote? It should go without saying that African-Americans have been a "true part of American political life" since before the birth of the United States. Among other things, they led a movement which seized the franchise by shifting public opinion and transforming the political landscape. That movement made the difference between the days when LBJ was strategizing against Civil Rights legislation to the days when Jesse Helms must claim to support it.

Caro seems smug towards Civil Rights activists who didn't trust Johnson's support until they got it. No doubt which bills Johnson supported, and when he came around to support them, is indeed, as Caro says, some combination of "ambition and compassion." It's short-sighted for historians to lionize Johnson's choices while disparaging the people whose vision, tactics, and courage made it possible for him to wed the two. Of course it makes a huge difference who the President is. But the Great Man Theory that tells us Lincoln freed the slaves and then Johnson gave their descendants the vote is a theory that should be in the dustbin of history by now.

Let's remember that as we consider the progress Barack Obama's nomination represents as well as the struggles ahead should there be an Obama presidency.

The Changing Campaign and Those Left Behind

WhoKnew... — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 22:29:56 EDT

So today I attended a symposium sponsored by Google and National Journal entitled the First 21st Century Campaign at Google’s DC headquarters. The first panel, which included Time's Mark Halperin, right wing blogger Mary Katherine Ham, The Politico’s James Kotecki, Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Communications Director Phil Singer and Mitt Romney’s Communications Director Kevin Madden, focused on the future of political coverage in light of the changing power and influence of the players involved. In my opinion, what was the perfect opportunity for a dialogue concerning how the interactions among campaigns, mainstream media and the electorate are changing devolved into the common dispute between old and new media.

30-Minute Terrorism, Just Add Sprinkles

Ali M Latifi — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:56:37 EDT

Recently Rachael Ray and Dunkin' Donuts have both come under fire for an advertisement featuring the TV host in what is allegedly a keffiyeh.

To say that this argument is nothing more than nonsensical xenophobia and Arab mongering would be an understatement.

CNN Stirs Xenophobia

Ali M Latifi — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:24:41 EDT

This is the top headline on the frontpage of the CNN website:

Media Reform Conference in Ohio!

Thomas Coen — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:14:57 EDT

Campus Progress, along with the Scripps School of Journalism, is sponsoring a media reform conference this weekend at Ohio University. Campus Progress Student Advisory Board member Chelsea Toy is one of the lead organizers. Myself and Tanya from Campus Progress will be at OU for the event, which includes a film screening of A Soldier's Peace and a Q and A with producer/director/Iraq veterna Marshall Thompson. You can check out the full schedule of the conference here. Pre-registration is not required, so just show up Friday night and Saturday! Let Tanya or I know if you want to meet up and hear more about Campus Progress.

The Pentagon's Sleight of Hand in Crafting War Propaganda

Kate — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:16:33 EDT

As an Internet Organizer for Progressive Future, I've been busily spreading the otherwise buried reports of the atrocities and abuses committed by military contractors in Iraq. As outraged as they made me, I had to wonder why these stories failed to reach the mainstream American public. Now I know why.

Planet of the Arabs : Fear and Loathing in America

Ali M Latifi — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:13:25 EDT

Screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival Jackie Salloum's 9 minute short, "Planet of the Arabs" is a montage of the dehumanizing and vilifying depictions of Arabs in contemporary American film.

Planet of the Arabs

5 Years, 4 Thousand U.S. Deaths and $500 Billion Later...

Kate — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:07:49 EDT

Who reads the Internet?

Annika — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 10:39:22 EDT

Check out this chart from Nielsen, a market research company that monitors television viewer and web user habits. They also survey users for demographic info like political ideology—below (click to enlarge), they display the constituency of popular political and news sites by the percentage of readers who identify as liberal or very liberal (in blue) and readers who identify as conservative, moderate or undeclared (in red).

It's hard to draw conclusions from the results, though, with readers divided up so shoddily. Lumping together moderate and undeclared readers with conservatives is decidedly unhelpful, and skews the chart considerably--on first glance, it appears that conservative readers dominate mainstream news sources, while liberals are sequestered on Mother Jones and The Nation.

Think about it

John Maryland — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:49:14 EDT

So chances are I fall into the minority of blogger's at Campus Progress, not because I want to but because I have no choice. Let's start with the basics, I dig the death penalty, doing something big with the immigration situation, stem-cell research, Dave Matthews and I think Anne Coulter is kinda hot. I don't dig abortion, most gun control, people thinking they know what's actually goin on in Iraq myself included, people scaring other people about the environment, and spiders.

So I got that goin for me, but I have to tell you I'm new to this concept of writing down what I think and hoping people care enough to read it. Which reminds me of a blog I just read about how Fox News is infiltrating facebook. The first thing that came to my head was "who cares?" I mean, I just go on facebook to see if any of the dumb crap I did the weekend before made it onto someone's camera, but then I got to thinking and it led me to the first point I'm going to make in this new venture. As 18, 19, 20, 21, ... year old men and women, we swim in pools of bias. Whether it be left, right, up, down or around, institutions of higher learning throughout the United States are shaping the political climate to come, not Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hanity or The New York Times. Their incites are left primarily to the baby boomers and our parents who are over the proverbial hump.

Ninety-nine out of 100 of us are going to form our beliefs on politics and government as a function of the institutions that raise us, and maybe only 60 out of 100 are gonna care enough to do something. I'm no angel and I may or may not fall within that 99 or 60, but it should be forums like this, conversations with each other, and finding out for ourselves that builds our beliefs and our characters and fights the biases we see and feel everyday. I'm not sure, but I don't think I'm gonna loose any sleep when The LA Times puts a link up on doratheexplorer.com, but it does shake me up to see how much we swallow in class and around campuses, without really considering it fully. Thanks for readin.

Helen Thomas at WAM!

Kay Steiger — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 21:02:03 EDT

Helen Thomas, as the keynote speaker at the Women, Action & Media! conference, offered up a narrative of modern American history through her eyes. It's the underbelly of history, and she does a good job of making it pretty damn funny. She noted a hilarious story of Ford who said, If Helen Thomas had been around when God made the Earth, Thomas quoted, He could not have rested on the seventh day. He would have had to explain it to Helen Thomas.

But she also made some serious points. The president wanted to spread democracy, she said but "you don't do that with the barrel of a gun." Thomas called the war immoral, unnecessary, and wrong.

What's interesting is her read of history. According to Thomas, by comparison George H.W. Bush was more reasonable than the current Bush. She held John F. Kennedy and Linden B. Johnson up as models for modern Democrats -- save Johnson's decision to go to Vietnam. Her narrative of history was kind to some presidents, but her kindness came with criticism.

Thomas quoted Thomas Jefferson, who preferred newspapers to government. When one woman asked for advice for women who feel the urge to self-censor, Thomas asked, "What are you afraid of?" Thomas said she viewed presidents as public service, "I pay their salary."

Update: The following is cross-posted from my own blog.

Asher Speaks Live

Asher — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 09:56:51 EDT

My name is Asher Heimermann and I am the host of a live internet radio broadcast show called "Asher Speaks Live". My show brings; authors, elected officials, candidates, and local celebrities "on air" as special guests to talk about their life and current events.

Asher Speaks Live attracts about 200 and 300 listeners each month. We discuss the latest national and political news as well as topics such as; news, sports, weather, and much more. Asher Speaks Live is a new innovative approach.

Noted guests on Asher Speaks Live include Larry Nelson, George Phillies, Kat Swift, and Judy Stock, just to name a few.

Archives of Asher Speaks Live can also be heard on my official website that is located at www.asherheimermann.com as well as my profile on MySpace, which can be found at www.myspace.com/aheimermann.

Please feel free to contact me for more information or to inquire about booking to be a special guest on the Asher Speaks Live radio program. You are welcome to visit my website to learn more about me and my radio show.

Mr. Asher Heimermann
asher@asherheimermann.com
http://www.asherheimermann.com
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/asher

Dr. Laura is bad for Your Marriage

Ali M Latifi — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:25:24 EDT

In a recent Today Show panel discussion about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Dr. Laura Schlessinger said that often when a man cheats its because his wife "does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like her hero."

Prince Harry and the Press Embargo

Matt Zeitlin — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:06:58 EST

In the United States, there's a large and growing problem of elites not serving in the military and, at the same time, the military becoming an institution dominated by the lower middle classes and by families who have a tradition of service. Although America has lower social mobility and lots of hereditary wealth, in Britain, they have a real royal family. But Britain's royals have a long tradition of military service. Prince Andrew, Charles' brother, served as helicopters pilot in the Falklands. And Prince Harry, brother of Prince William and third-in-line to the throne, is serving in the British Army.

Even though he's a royal, he's just a normal soldier and for the past ten weeks, he's been serving in Afghanistan. But we didn't hear about until a few days ago, when the Drudge Report broke the story. It turned out the British government got all the major media outlets in a room and requested that they not report that Harry was in Afghanistan, so he wouldn't endanger his fellow soldiers. The embargo was broken and now Harry is probably going to the Persian Gulf. But was it a good idea for the media to essentially be the lapdogs of the press? I think so.