An excerpt from Matt Taibbi’s new book, Hate, Inc. People forget that MSNBC, before it found its current niche as an anti-Trump network, was just a conventionally crappy news organization. In his new book Hate Inc., Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi critiques a corporate press which has achieved higher ratings and profits via nonstop promotion…
The suspicions of laymen have never been answered by the press. Newspapers, upholding the right of criticism as a road to freedom, oppose all criticism of themselves….like kings, [they] pretend they can do no wrong. I wish they were right. – Journalist and George Seldes, writing in Freedom of the Press in early 1935. By…
Whose War? John Reed The Masses, April 1917 edition By the time this goes to press the United States may be at war. The day the German note arrived, Wall Street flung the American flag to the breeze, the brokers on the floor of the Stock Exchange sang “The Star Spangled Banner” with tears rolling…
Here are two reports – from Democracy Now! on January 2 and The Real News Network on December 11 – detailing yet another false mainstream media story that purportedly proved Russia/Trump/WikiLeaks collusion. In its zealous effort to prove the Russiagate narrative it has promoted for more than a year, much of the corporate press continues…
Rutgers historian Jackson Lears has published the most cogent critique yet written of the ongoing Russiagate hysteria in the January 4, 2018 edition of the London Review of Books. Difficult though it will be, we would all be well-served if our citizens among the mainstream corporate press, Congress and the general public who remain sufficiently…
Getting to the News that Matters, via journalist Antonia Juhasz, shared on Facebook: There’s been a lot of breaking news lately about a lot of critically important things. And there’s been a lot of spreading of misinformation. As a writer, I’d like to offer a few friendly reminders to help you steer your way through…
April 27, 2017 9.51pm EDT Christopher B. Daly Professor of Journalism, Boston University When the United States declared war on Germany 100 years ago, the impact on the news business was swift and dramatic. In its crusade to “make the world safe for democracy,” the Wilson administration took immediate steps at home to curtail one…
See All Governments Lie: Truth, Deception, and the Spirit of I.F. Stone at the Jewish Film Institute’s Winterfest, March 5, 11:45 a.m. at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. The film will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Rick Goldsmith, Rose Aguilar, Norman Solomon and David Talbot. See below for bios, visit AllGovernmentsLie.com for more information,…
A welcome addition to the conversation about the nature of the food movement and how change occurs. But Washington Post columnist Tamar Haspel’s work has raised serious questions. At what point does allowing a food and ag columnist to accept compensation from agrochemical industry groups become another corruption of journalistic ethics? After the first dollar…
