Media Massage

It is exactly what I say it is…

I have a new book review in the August issue of In These Times. It’s live on the innerwebs today. Click here to read it. For any of you who wondered why I turned down a pretty solid offer to enter into a media studies PhD program this fall, the review should help shine a light. I highly recommend the Bousquet book. It is amazing…and depressing.

And…I have another piece on the horizon for FAIR’s magazine Extra! — it was scheduled to be sooner, but I had to go and get married and whatnot, so I had to push the piece back. I think it will appear in their Nov. issue. It’s going to be about coverage of the economy during the bubble, as compared to now. Or something along those lines. Fun! 

Lastly, in work-work related news, I’m copyediting a book for the second year in a row. It’s fun, in a weirdly anal-retentive kinda way. Plus I get my name in lights — ok, well just on the spine.

Hey folks:

I’ve been crazed as of late. Last week, into the weekend, I was down in Philly for the AAN Convention — working like a dog…but I co-managed this community blog, which is worth checking out. It ended up being pretty cool.

AAN Convention Community Blog

And also, FAIR has just put online a story I wrote for their Nov/Dec 2007 issue, on how the press covers crime and the courts. I used the 200th DNA exoneration in the US as a jumping-off point, but mostly focused on how the two daily papers in Chicago railroaded a seemingly innocent man, Carl Chatman. His case is still winding through the courts, though I haven’t heard any updates in a while. It’s a fascinating case, though, one I may soon try to write about more.

Enabling False Convictions: Exoneration coverage overlooks media role

And look for a new book review in the next In These Times, on a subject near and dear to my heart — the corporatization of higher education. Deadline=rapidly approaching. Ack.

Indeed, things have been busy on my end, and plus, it’s springtime and all. The hours I’ve had that aren’t devoted to work have mostly been outside, biking, softballin’, dog walkin’ and the like. 

Anyway, two recent stories of mine are online now. Check ‘em:

TV’s Low-Cal Campaign Coverage: How 385 stories can tell you next to nothing about whom to vote for

Collapse of the Fourth Estate

Just a self-promoting FYI here: My review/essay on two books tackling the media’s coverage of the Iraq War is out in the current issue of In These Times. It won’t be available online through ITT until May. Once I get a final copy of the final text, it’ll be online somewhere else and I’ll give you the head’s up. But if any of y’all are particularly eager (doubtful!), pick up the new ITT at your local bookstore.

Oh, right: The essay, “The Collapse of the Fourth Estate,” looks at Greg Mitchell’s So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits—and the President—Failed on Iraq, and When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina, co-authored by W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence and Steven Livingston.