On-campus speaker Atul Singh . . .

. . . wrote this analysis of Trump and the presidential election.

Is U.S. media system failing to inform?

Typical of similar academic studies over the years, a 2008 study compared the level of public knowledge about current events in Denmark, Finland, United Kingdom and the United States. It found that the countries where TV/radio is dominated by public broadcasting -- Denmark and Finland -- were the best informed. Our country, dominated by corporate commercial media, was the least informed. The U.K.'s public, with its mix of Murdoch-style tabloids and BBC, was in the middle. The study's authors suggest that differing media systems play a role in those results.

A 2003 study of public knowledge of facts related to the Iraq War found that misperceptions among U.S. residents (that evidence linked Iraq and al Qaeda; that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq; and that world public opinion favored the US invasion) were greatest among those whose primary info source was Fox News -- and least among those whose primary info source was public broadcasting. (A Pew poll taken in Aug. 2010 found that almost 1 in 5 Americans believed President Obama to be a Muslim; only 34% knew he is a Christian. 43% chose "don't know.")

Why can't we have public broadcasting like this in USA?

Weeks before the 2003 U.S./British invasion of Iraq, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman and skeptical British citizens literally cross-examined Prime Minister Tony Blair about evidence/reasons/legality behind the invasion -- an interview whose transcript and Blair's comments became part of Britain's official Iraq inquiry in 2011. (Here's another tough Paxman interview of Blair . . . unrelated to Iraq. And here, Paxman interviews Russell Brand in Oct. 2013.) 

In our country, pressure from politicians + lack of insulated funding = embarrassing timidity at so-called "public television"...as evidenced by PBS surgically removing Tina Fey's comedic swipes at Sarah Palin from a broadcast in November 2010.

Country by country comparisons of taxpayer spending on public broadcasting here.

DOES IT FOLLOW THAT big public/state/taxpayer-funding of broadcasting leads to state-controlled and propagandistic broadccasting? Not according to the World Press Freedom Index, which shows the countries with the biggest media subsidies seem to have the greatest press freedom. 

In Feb 2015 a mini-scandal blew up over corporate underwriting of U.S. public TV and I was interviewed on the topic by The Real News Network. 

Days before the U.S. election, Dutch public TV aired a strong doc, "Still Berning," on the possible legacy of the Bernie Sanders movement; it would have been deemed too biased or controversial for PBS.

Internet invented in US. But it's slow and under threat

In the opening scene of the Outfoxed documentary, media scholar Robert McChesney explains how big media corporations (acting almost like gangsters) have made media policy behind closed doors, dividing the cake among themselves. If the FCC were doing its job, it might pose gentle but probing questions of gangsta Murdoch and "Murdochopoly," as Jon Stewart did in 2013. (Years ago, Murdoch famously said: "Monopoly is a terrible thing, until you have it.")

The USA, where the Internet was invented, lags behind other countries in Internet speed. Here's one ranking from 2015. In 2009, big Internet providers such as Verizon, Comcast, AT&T DID NOT APPLY for any of the billions in federal stimulus grants for expanding broadband infrastructure, according to the Wall St. Journal, because recipients of our tax money had to agree to respect Net Neutrality.

On HBO in June, "investigative comic" John Oliver offered a powerful commentary in support of Net Neutrality, generating so many comments to the FCC that it crashed the Commission's website. Months of public pressure sparked President Obama in November 2014 to speak clearly that his FCC should protect Net Neut. 

So, Net Neutrality was saved in 2015. But under threat from President-elect Trump, cheered on by his friends at Breitbart.com.

PS "Survey Shows Satire News Programs Inform People Better Than Actual News on Net Neutrality," reports Dan Van Winkle in summarizing a 2014 University of Delaware survey. Respondents said they learned more about Net Neutrality from John Oliver, Colbert and Jon Stewart's Daily Show than from newspapers, online news or TV news. 

PPS In January 2011, I was asked to appear on a talk-radio show on a big city station to analyze Keith Oblermann's exit from MSNBC; when I suggested a link to the Comcast takeover and criticized Comcast's opposition to Net Neutrality, a producer asked me during a commercial break to stop the "Comcast-bashing" because "they're our biggest sponsor."  

President-Elect Drumpf and Freedom of the Press

Freedom of the Press Foundation statement on President-Elect Trump, links to this well-researched  Columbia Journalism Review piece.  In the media area, Trump has already threatened Net Neutrality, a move being cheered on by Breitbart.com.

Mainstream Media Promoted Breitbart's Video Distortions

The late Andrew Breitbart, a former assistant to Matt Drudge, ran BigGovernment.com and other websites (now found at Breitbart.com). In July 2010, the Obama White House forced U.S. Dept of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod to quit after BigGovernment posted a 100-second video excerpt purporting to show that, during a speech to the NAACP, Sherrod had boasted about discriminating against a white farmer while she was a federal employee in the Obama administration. Actually, as Breitbart later semi-corrected, Sherrod was describing events in the 1980s when she was Georgia field director for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, a nonprofit that had grown out of the civil rights movement to help Black farmers long discriminated against by the U.S. Dept of Agriculture. More importantly, a fuller version of the speech (first aired by CNN) showed that Sherrod had told the story to illustrate how she had overcome her bias toward whites and ultimately helped the white farmer save his farm.

Ten months earlier, in 2009, other selectively-edited tapes distributed by Breitbart's website (featuring James O'Keefe and played repeatedly on Fox News and elsewhere) helped put the anti-poverty group ACORN out of business. Rachel Maddow dissects the distorted presentation that doomed ACORN. 

It wasn't just Fox News that promoted the misleading ACORN story. The Public Editor of the paper of record, the New York Times, went to absurd lengths to defend his paper's inaccurate coverage.

A Drudge "Exclusive" . . . Readers Beware!

Perhaps Matt Drudge should stick to aggregating content from others (often with revved-up headlines) rather than "report" -- as demonstrated by this 1999 "World Exclusive," which helped push a hoax into mainstream media.

Can partisan or openly biased journalists . . .

. . . engage in independent reporting and commentary -- as opposed to partisan propaganda? Here's some critical commentary from the conservative National Review Online within hours of John McCain selecting Sarah Palin as his running-mate in August 2008: 

          Ramesh Ponnuru: "Palin has been governor for about two minutes."

David Frum: "But question: If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency?"

Shannen Coffin: "If John McCain has said that a year plus of statewide office (plus some small town politics) is good enough, why isn't state legislature and a couple of visits to the floor of the U.S. Senate?"

Jonah Goldberg: "Downside: She may not be ready for primetime. The heartbeat-from-the-presidency issue is a real one."

This isn't the drumbeat GOP cheer-leading one might get from a less independent source like Fox News at that crucial juncture.

Undercover videotaping of animal abuse on factory farms . . .

. . . has prompted "food libel" or "food disparagement" laws in many states, aimed at protecting powerful agribusiness interests that apparently have something to hide. Here's a video report from U.C. Berkeley News 21 students.

HuffPost Citizen Journalist Impacts 2008 Election

Mayhill Fowler, a citizen journalist for HuffingtonPost's "Off the Bus" project, posted a report that launched the so-called "Bittergate" uproar that nearly derailed Obama's 2008 campaign. 

The Bittergate of 2012 campaign: "47%-gate." (The 47% bartender/recorder.) Recently Hillary Clinton reportedly used a noise machine so journalists and others couldn't hear what was happening at her private, high-dollar fundraiser in Colorado.

In getting a later scoop, Fowler said she didn't hide that she was recording ex-President Clinton as he verbally trashed a Vanity Fair reporter as "sleazy" and "dishonest" and "a scumbag, while greeting voters in public as he campaigned for his wife in June 2008. BUT Clinton obviously did not know Fowler was a HuffPost "citizen journalist." Should she have ID'd herself? (She clearly got a more honest response from Clinton than if he'd known she was a journalist.)

Should public figures know nowadays that anything said in public -- especially rants (or racism) -- will be recorded and available forever? Exhibits A (and A-1) features a U.S. senator and B features a comedic actor.

First "viral video": George Holliday records 1991 LA police beating of Rodney King

Early "citizen journalist" George Holliday records "world's most famous home video." Here's a brief excerpt. 

Snowden coverage: If U.S. media state-controlled, would it look much different?

My June 2013 piece on some of the mainstream media reaction to Snowden and his revelations about NSA surveillance on millions of people not suspected of any crime. NY Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin commented: "I'd arrest him [Snowden] and I'd almost arrest Glenn Greenwald." Meet the Press host David Gregory asked Greenwald, "Why shouldn't you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?" (start 1:30)

     At 2007 Radio-Television Correspondents Association Dinner, top journalists (including then-NBC White House correspondent David Gregory) were literally dancing with a top source, the controversial Bush aide Karl Rove. These are social/charitable events where journalists and newsmakers are expected to have some fun, but is it symbolic of too much elite media/government coziness? 

On the issue of "objective" vs "advocacy" journalism, here's a list of top works of journalism worth studying.

Early You Tube Stars Got Real Income

What the Buck? Here's Michael Buckley's "My You Tube Story." According to a Dec 2008 NY Times report, "You Tube Videos Pull In Real Money," Buckley earned over $100k in the previous year from his YouTube video-commentaries or rants about celebs. 

Since she was about 14, my now-19-year-old daughter's main source of daily news was, for years, Philly D (of "The Philip DeFranco Show"), who offers his take on current events and celeb news. (Should I have been monitoring my daughter's online activities better?)

Cory Williams and his smpFilms hit the big-time with "Hey Little Sparta" (aka "The Mean Kitty Song" -- over 80 million views). He told the NYT in 2008 that he was earning over $200k per year, partly from (ugh!) product placements in his videos. 

The rise of The Young Turks

The Young Turks is a web TV phenom,  and YouTube played a major role in its success; here's a Turks' video on media censorship. And here's the trailer for new doc, "Mad As Hell," about Cenk Uygur and The Young Turks. (Here's the original "Mad as Hell" excerpt from the 1976 movie Network.) A 2014 London daily profiled Cenk. Yours truly was interviewed by TYT about media coverage of candidate Bernie Sanders. 

Brave New Films' "McCain's Mansions" played a role in the 2008 election campaign, thanks in part to YouTube. Ditto for this citizen journalism video about the then-dictator of Tunisia.

AOL's Journalistic Values

Soon after AOL announced its merger with HuffingtonPost in February, 2011 Business Insider (followed by the Boston Globe) published leaked AOL documents offering a glimpse into that company's journalistic approach -- not one that Arianna Huffington would endorse. (H/t to former indy media student Leah T, for posting the Insider's summary of AOL's guidelines.)

Conservative political blog . . .

Legal Insurrection, WAS launched by Cornell Law professor William Jacobson in 2008.  College Insurrection was launched in 2012.

"The Price I've Paid for Opposing Donald Trump"

Conservative journalist David French describes the violent, racist deluge he and his wife received from Trump supporters.

Web censorship in China

After Yahoo provided info to China's government that led to 10-year prison sentences for two Chinese dissidents beginning in 2003 and 2005, the families of the victims (Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao) sued Yahoo. As a result, Yahoo announced in 2008 that it had established a fund for people persecuted or jailed in China for posting political views online. Too little, too late?

In response to demands from China's government, Google agreed in June 2010 to quit automatically switching its users in China to Google's uncensored Hong Kong search site. But there's a tab users can click to be switched. Should Chinese citizens feel safe when hitting that tab?

Web censorship in the USA

In 2008, the media reform group Free Press highlighted media and telecom corporations who'd recently been caught censoring web or cellphone traffic.

Inner City Press was delisted by Google News not long after its founder/leader asked an embarrassing question of Google at the United Nations.

Tom Tomorrow, editorial cartoonist

The chaining and corporatization of alternative weeklies can undermine alternative cartoonists like "Tom Tomorrow"/Dan Perkins.