Media

In recent years the nature of American journalism—and the press’s role in everyday life—has dramatically changed. In The Business of Journalism, ten leading reporters and editors speak for the record about the changes they’ve seen and the effects such changes have wrought. These seasoned journalists tackle such controversial issues as how the press lost the public trust; the increasing concentration of ownership in the media business and its consequences for freedom of the press; the ongoing struggle to integrate America’s newsrooms; and the pressures on smaller, independent newspapers. The Business of Journalism is an insider’s look at a fascinating and changing industry.

Slanting the Story is a powerful and provocative exposé of the real “right-wing conspiracy”: the well-orchestrated efforts of conservative foundations and think tanks in recent years to use the media to dominate debates in American policy.

Award-winning investigative reporter Trudy Lieberman shows clearly and convincingly how right-wing think tanks have moved their ideas to the front of the national agenda and engineered sweeping changes in public policy. She also reveals how a gullible mainstream media has consistently taken them at their word and spread their ideas.

In many ways, Lieberman argues, organizations like the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Manhattan Institute, and others have “beaten Ralph Nader at his own game,” closely modeling their efforts on the successes of the consumer, environmental, and public–interest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Through four well–documented case studies of right-wing policy strategies of recent years—to dampen public support for the AARP and the Social Security program, to gut the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory powers, to eliminate the Head Start program, and to fundamentally change the structure of Medicare—Lieberman shows how conservative foundations and think tanks have skillfully used the media to demonize the federal government and to diminish public support for the social welfare system.

Credible and full of evidence, Slanting the Story reveals the shadowy world of wealthy right-wing think tanks for the first time.

This book represents the opinions of Trudy Lieberman and not those of the Consumers Union.

What are the effects of increasing conglomerate ownership on the creation and dissemination of news and culture? These nine essays by leading media insiders and critics take probing, critical looks at the dramatic changes of recent years.

Opening with a fascinating overview of radio and television history by Erik Barnouw, the “dean of American media critics,” the first part of the book features longtime media insiders such as Richard M. Cohen (former CBS Evening News senior producer) and Gene Roberts (former managing editor of the New York Times), writing candidly on the effects of increasing profit expectations in the newsroom. In the second part of the book, prominent media analysts, such as Mark Crispin Miller (author of Boxed In), Thomas Schatz (author of The Genius of the System), David Lieberman (USA Today), and Patricia Aufderheide (In These Times), discuss the dumbing-down of the publishing industry, the transformation of Hollywood, the increasing importance of merchandising and foreign rights in all media, and the false promise of the digital age. Finally, Thomas Frank (The Baffler) examines advertising and the possibility of resistance to conglomerate control of the media.

Tired of ten-second soundbites and news you can’t use from sources you don’t trust? Concerned that the American media is turning into a national entertainment state controlled by a handful of media moguls and global corporations?

We the Media offers you help and hope. Filled with up-to-the-minute facts, figures, and commentary, the book features over 100 of the leading journalists, media critics, and experts in the country on: who owns and controls the media; how the rapidly expanding empires of Disney, Time Warner, Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, and other media conglomerates affect what you see, hear, and read; how political considerations and the radical right influence what gets on the air and who gets left out of the picture; and how advertising pervades virtually every second of your life. We the Media also highlights the alternatives—organizations, leaders, and the media makers who are successfully fighting the conglomerates and demanding that media and democracy go together.

Our media system has been transformed and our lives will be changed in ways we don’t even know yet. But we can do something about it. We the Media is a survival guide to navigating the brave new media landscape.

Contributors include:

• Adbusters
• Eric Alterman
• Ben Bagdikian
• John Perry Barlow
• Robert Bray
• Denise Caruso
• Farai Chideya
• Jeff Cohen
• Barbara Ehrenreich
• Susan Faludi
• Laura Flanders
• George Gerbner
• Todd Gitlin
• Herb Chao Gunther
• Jim Hightower
• Adam Hochschild
• Janine Jackson
• Sut Jhally
• Jean Kilbourne
• Libraries for the Future
• Robert McChesney
• Mark Crispin Miller
• Jill Nelson
• Project Censored
• Leslie Savan
• Danny Schecter
• Ken Silverstein
• Norman Solomon
• John Stauber
• Makani Themba