Currently Browsing: Media
Posted by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist | Oct 18th, 2009
It came as no surprise to me when I read a recent article “Saudi jailed for ‘bragging’ about sex”. You see, like an average man (or MCP) I, too, never lose an opportunity to brag…well, about everything!!! So, when I landed in Jeddah in the late-1970s to take up my journalistic assignment, my friends warned me to be very, very careful about two subjects — drinks and women...
Posted by JOE WINDISH, Technology Editor | Oct 17th, 2009
On Thursday Gawker’s Nick Denton was on a Magazine Publishers of America Magazine Innovation Summit panel titled “The Decline and Rise of Magazine Journalism.” The moderator, Slate’s Jacob Weisberg, asked how Denton monitors and fact-checks the content on Gawker sites:
“We don’t,” Mr. Denton replied flatly. “We aim to get the truth over time. The verification model is post-publication...
Posted by KATHY KATTENBURG | Oct 17th, 2009
Here is Sharon Otterman’s report in yesterday’s New York Times on the United Nations Human Rights Council’s decision and what it means going forward:
Posted by DAVID ADESNIK | Oct 17th, 2009
Steve Benen has a very different opinion from my own. So what if some racist statements were falsely attributed to Rush? He’s said plenty of real racist things, too. Steve provides this list, via TAPPED,
Limbaugh’s record of racist commentary…includes not only a habit of comparing black athletes to gang members but a general hostility toward black people. Limbaugh only recently suggested...
Posted by DAVID ADESNIK | Oct 17th, 2009
As I’ve said before, I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh or any other conservative talk-show hosts. Nothing I know about Rush & Co. has inspired any particular respect or fondness on my part. Yet I remain deeply suspicious of those who rely on criticism of Rush & Co. to advertise their own alleged commitment to civility, facts and the reality-based community.
This brings us, of course, to the...
Posted by DAVID ADESNIK | Oct 17th, 2009
As Joe Windish noted this morning, Shepherd Fairey, the artist responsible for the “HOPE” portrait of President Obama, has admitted to tampering with and manufacturing evidence in a lawsuit related to the portrait. The Associated Press claims that Mr. Fairey owes them compensation, since the portrait was based on an AP photo of Obama.
I’m curious to know whether Obama will get a question about...
Posted by JOE WINDISH, Technology Editor | Oct 17th, 2009
Ted Turner regrets losing his job at Time Warner, his wife, Jane Fonda, and $7 billion of his fortune. In a Bloomberg interview out yesterday he also says we’ll get out of Afghanistan:
“War is obsolete…The last time someone surrendered was Japan and that was 60 years ago. The Afghans will never surrender. We will just get tired and come home. We’ve already given up on Iraq and there’s oil...
Posted by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Deputy Managing Editor, Columnist | Oct 16th, 2009
Hello there, Dr. Estés here. UPDATE to the story continuing to unfold in Texas between Governor Perry and a Commission looking into facts, or lack of… surrounding a man condemned to death in Texas. A mystery within a mystery as some facts/motives surfaced by usual means, but some recently appeared from ‘invisible hands.’ To give clarity? Or to purposely muddy the waters? Correspondent here...
Posted by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist | Oct 16th, 2009
In many parts of India you can see people enjoying bhang/hashish (or cannabis/marijuana) by the roadside without attracting a look of surprise or disapproval. It is only when the Western world began to raise hue and cry that people in the urban areas began to smoke/drink it discreetly at the occasional activation of the dormant laws.
In nearly 80 per cent of India it is still openly consumed (generally in...
Posted by PATRICK EDABURN | Oct 16th, 2009
There’s the old joke about the heartless corporation that is so bad it will do anything to collect a debt.
Well Macy’s in Sacramento, California seems to have taken this to a whole new level.
It all began when Ken and Patty Blomberg got into a dispute with the store over the purchase of some rugs that they never got but Macy’s still wanted them to pay for. That dispute went along for a while...
Posted by WILLIAM KERN | Oct 15th, 2009
After being invaded by the previous U.S. administration based on faulty information, how do Iraqis feel about the current president of the United States winning the Nobel Peace Prize?
In the first translation on the subject we’ve had from Iraq, Abd Al Razzak Al Rabihi doesn’t spare the use of exclamation points in his understandable outburst of exasperation. He writes for Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper...
Posted by WILLIAM KERN | Oct 15th, 2009
GENIE ASKS UNCLE SAM: ‘WILL IT BE A MILITARY BASE, A COCA BASE OR A DATA BASE?’
How do Colombians feel about the seven military bases the United States intends to build on their nation’s land? According to this off-color tongue-in-cheek column by Colombian writer and art professor Lucas Ospina, it’s alright with him – with one important proviso.
For Colombia’s Semana newspaper...
Posted by MARC PASCAL | Oct 15th, 2009
I would like to invite all writers, editors, commentators and readers to make some major predictions for the future that they believe will transpire by or around certain future dates. I ran this idea by Joe Gandelman last week who told me to run with it.
These “revelations” can concern science, technology, environment, wars and militaries, climate change, healthcare, religion, politics, economics, business,...
Posted by CAGLE CARTOONS | Oct 15th, 2009
RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch
This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.
Posted by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist | Oct 15th, 2009
What is common between Saudi and Chinese officials/leaders? Whenever they speak be prepared to leave a lot of room for interpretations. So let’s see what it means when Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal (the long-time director general of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service, the Al Mukhabarat Al Aamah, and the Saudi ambassador to the US) finds similarities between Osama bin-Laden and Robin Hood, a hero...
Posted by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief | Oct 15th, 2009
The brazenness of partisan rhetoric each day hits new lows. And here is one for the books:
For months since January 20, 2009 when President Barack Obama took over any bad economic news was attributed to Obama, even when he was in office for less than a month.
But now the stock market has hit 10,000 and amid some gloomy economic news there are some positive signs — so Fox News’ Neil Cavuto calls...
Posted by KATHY KATTENBURG | Oct 14th, 2009
Jack Ross at The American Conservative has the same feeling about Commentary that I do: it’s like a catastrophe on the highway that you can’t look away from. Here, Ross reacts to Commentary’s Jennifer Rubin, who takes umbrage at Maureen Dowd’s “liberal venomous paranoia” about Liz Cheney’s post-Bush career of attacking Pres. Obama for his unforgivable decision to...
Posted by WILLIAM KERN | Oct 14th, 2009
Roman Polanski and his victim, Samantha Geimer, as she looked as a thirteen-year-old in 1977.
One of the interesting side effects of the arrest of film director Roman Polanski is the soul-searching it has set off in the other countries that claim him as one of their own – in this case, Poland. Why are people defending a man who committed, in the eyes of most civilized people, one of the worst crimes imaginable...
Posted by JOE WINDISH, Technology Editor | Oct 14th, 2009
Their NFL sources say:
Dave Checketts, chairman of the NHL’s St. Louis Blues and the point man in the Limbaugh group attempting to buy the Rams, realizes he must remove the controversial conservative radio host from his potential role as a minority member in the group in order to get approval from other NFL owners, the sources said.
Apparently not unexpected:
You could see this story coming like a boulder...
Posted by JERRY REMMERS, Columnist | Oct 14th, 2009
It’s not official but early returns of talk radio conservative mega voice Rush Limbaugh’s bid to become part owner of the St. Louis Rams is all but dead before arrival. It seems the money earned by the mouth that roars is not good enough for one of the most exclusive clubs in America.
“I’ve said many times before we’re all held to a high standard here, and I think divisive comments...
Posted by JOE WINDISH, Technology Editor | Oct 14th, 2009
Romenesko notes that when the legendary White House reporter said it yesterday afternoon at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, the crowd gasped:
“I was the interviewer and it rocked me a little,” writes Phil Bronstein [link]. “In the same conversation Ms. Thomas said ‘Nancy Reagan was a heroine in my opinion,’ expressed tender sympathy for Lyndon Johnson and great respect for...
Posted by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist | Oct 14th, 2009
As a journalism teacher I am often asked: Should media cater to what interests the public or PUBLIC INTEREST? In recent times the media, with honorable exceptions, has brazenly catered to the lowest common denominator (generally pandering to the basest instincts) under the cloak of infotainment. Arianna Huffington, the moving spirit behind Huffington Post, has started HuffPost Impact to talk about issues that...
Posted by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist | Oct 14th, 2009
How much danger terrorists pose in Britain? “The campaign I am talking about is not being planned by Jihadis or fringe Irish nationalists but by white ‘neo-Nazis’ who want to murder Asians, black people, Jews and gays in the bizarre belief it will trigger a ‘race war’, says Johann Hari in The Independent.
“The police are warning ever-more urgently that similar attacks seem...
Posted by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Deputy Managing Editor, Columnist | Oct 14th, 2009
Sounds True is the superlative audio company that has produced my audio books for the last twenty years… my works like The Radiant Coat, Stories about the Crossings Between Life and Death… a work used by many professionals in health, healing and hospices. Other of my works: Theatre of the Imagination: Thirteen weeks of live performances of myths and stories revolving around dark and difficult life...
Posted by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist | Oct 13th, 2009
When we were growing up, teenagers, especially girls in our extended family, were mostly Archie fans. These comic books, to be found scattered around in many teenage bedrooms, invited my occasional curiosity. Interestingly, the nearly 70-year-old Archie is still evergreen and his romantic pursuits still invite media spotlight.
“That perennially teenage redhead from Riverdale made headlines around the...