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(Photo by Robin Holland)
In his conversation with Bill Moyers on this week’s JOURNAL, scholar and former army colonel Andrew Bacevich discussed his vision of what has gone wrong with American government and policy over the last several decades.
“The Congress, especially with regard to matters related to national security policy, has thrust power and authority to the executive branch. We have created an imperial presidency. The Congress no longer is able to articulate a vision of what is the common good. The Congress exists primarily to ensure the reelection of members of Congress... As the Congress has moved to the margins, as the President has moved to the center of our politics, the presidency itself has come to be less effective...
Because of this preoccupation, this fascination with the presidency, the President has become what we have instead of genuine politics, instead of genuine democracy... We look to the next President to fix things and, of course, that lifts all responsibility from me to fix things. So one of the real problems with the imperial presidency is that it has hollowed out our politics and, in many respects, has made our democracy a false one. We’re going through the motions of a democratic political system, but the fabric of democracy really has worn very thin.”
What do you think?
Do you agree with Bacevich’s assessment? If yes, how can we fix it? If no, explain.
Bacevich talks about the legislative and executive branches. How does the judicial branch relate to his discussion?
Numerous viewers have written to BILL MOYERS JOURNAL lamenting what some say has been the most sensational – and least educational – election coverage that the corporate news media has yet provided.
Whether or not you agree with that dire diagnosis, you may have some questions for the Presidential candidates that have not penetrated coverage of the horse race.
What questions would you ask of the Presidential candidates?
Please respond below or email your questions to moyersblog [at] thirteen.org
In this week’s JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with journalists Les Payne and Brooke Gladstone about the media and the upcoming elections.
Gladstone said that press coverage revolves around sensationalism:
“This [election coverage] isn’t about relative importance. This is about celebrity. This is about putting your finger in the air and following the public mood. Is it news? No. Is it an audience generator? Yes.”
We invite you to discuss in the space below.
(Photo by Robin Holland)
This week on the JOURNAL, political analysts Merle and Earl Black discussed the importance of demographics in predicting and understanding voting patterns in different states and regions.
Earl Black said:
“Well, you can't understand the nation just by looking at national outcomes. Because America's too diverse.'”
Campaigns have long devoted resources to targeted advertising, but in recent years they have begun using sophisticated marketing techniques to engage niche demographic groups with messages tailored specifically for them.
In an interview with FRONTLINE, WASHINGTON POST reporter Thomas Edsall described the Republicans’ “metrics” system of targeted outreach in 2000 and 2004:
“[They] took Nielsen lists and then consumer data lists. You can buy all kinds of lists of how you use your American Express card and VISA card. Every time you swipe it, it goes into a data bank. And what you buy, what your habits [are] -- they then would get those lists for people. You have 200 million people on these lists that you can buy. You then survey these lists politically and find out who is a Republican. Then you do correlations on -- for example, people who have caller ID on their phones tend to be Republicans. People who drink Coors beer tend to be Republicans. People who watch Fox News tend very much to be Republican. You get all these flags … and then you would find ways to then start targeting people, no matter where they lived.”
Senator Barack Obama’s campaign has deployed an even more sophisticated system for 2008, according to SALON writer Mike Madden:
“The 5 million people on Obama's e-mail list are just the start of what political strategists say is one of the most sophisticated voter databases ever built. Using a combination of the information that supporters are volunteering, data the campaign is digging up on its own and powerful market research tools first developed for corporations, Obama's staff has combined new online organizing with old-school methods of voter outreach to assemble a central database for hitting people with messages tailored as closely as possible to what they're likely to want to hear. It's an ambitious melding of corporate marketing and grassroots organizing that the Obama campaign sees as a key to winning this fall... It means the campaign may not wind up wasting time contacting people who are probably voting for McCain, and that when Obama aides or volunteers go out looking for supporters, they have a pretty good idea of what issues those potential supporters care about most.”
What do you think?
Are your political views predictable based on your age, background, and consumer choices?
Does targeted outreach to tell niche voters what they want to hear undermine citizens’ ability to understand different viewpoints and reach compromise on issues?
(Photo by Robin Holland)
Conversing with Bill Moyers on this week’s JOURNAL, journalist Philip Pan discussed the situation on the ground in China and the prospects for democratization of its infamously authoritarian government.
“I think we have this assumption in the West that capitalism, that free markets lead to free societies, that capitalism will lead to democracy in China, that it’s almost an automatic process. Once income levels reach a certain level there, that this political [change] is going to happen in China, just as it did in other parts of the world. My argument would be that it’s not automatic, certainly. We’ve seen 30 years now of strong economic growth, and the [Communist] Party is arguably stronger now than it has been ever in these past 30 years. The Party has been able to use capitalism to strengthen its hold on power.
At the same time, though, the party has retreated in many ways. People have much more personal freedom than ever before. Because so many people have been lifted out of poverty, they have many more options in life. So it’s a mixed picture, but I think it would be naïve for policy makers to assume that this is going to be an automatic process, that we just have to continue to trade with China and the political change is just going to happen.”
What do you think?
Will trade with capitalist democracies transform China into a democratic state?
What is the relationship between democracy and capitalism?
(Photos by Robin Holland)
Are we living in a second gilded age? Yes, according to historian Steven Fraser, one of Bill Moyers’ guests on the JOURNAL this week.
“Basically, we left the financial marketplace largely unregulated – a tendency which had begun under Reagan and continued at an accelerated pace all through the years since Reagan, including under the Clinton administration... When push comes to shove, businessmen and their financial enablers may talk the talk about the free market. But when times get tough, they turn to the government to bail them out... That is this close, almost incestuous relationship between business and government.”
Bill Moyers also spoke with columnist Holly Sklar about the difficulties many workers face in trying to earn a living wage. She said:
“We’ve been living the American dream in reverse... Adjusting for inflation, average wages are lower than they were in the 1970s. Our minimum wage, adjusting for inflation, is lower than it was in the 1950s. One of the things going on is that income and wealth inequality have gone back to the 1920s. We are back at levels that we saw right before the Great Depression.”
On the ground in Los Angeles, the JOURNAL introduced Jaron Quetel, a young union member struggling to make ends meet. He said:
“Working the best job I’ve ever had in my whole life, I’m still a breath away from drowning. I’m $20 away from being on the street. I am one car payment away from being re-poed. I’m barely surviving. I’m leading a substandard lifestyle because I make substandard wages... If I wasn’t trying, if I was a screw-up, if I was taking advantage of things, I couldn’t complain. But what more can I do at this point?”
Are you feeling pinched by today’s economy? Are people in your community?
What economic policies would you like to see put into place? Do you expect politicians to enact any of them?
[Please note we have provided a list of sites related to clean elections and you can find sites and research related to economic disparity and the work of Holly Sklar.]
Congress is still deadlocked over the Bush Administration's efforts to listen in to phone calls and read emails without search warrants. The sticking point is whether or not to allow private citizens to sue telecom conglomerates, the huge firms that provide most of us with phone and internet service - and helped the Administration spy on us. Now, the Administration wants to try to spy on Americans in another way. My colleague Rick Karr has this to bring you up to speed.
-Bill Moyers
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We invite you to respond in the space below.
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In his conversation with Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL this week, international lawyer Philippe Sands discussed the Bush Administration’s view of international law:
“They don't like international rules. It goes back to a project back in the 1990s, a Project for the New American Century, in which the very same people who came into the administration said, 'International rules impose constraints on the United States, undermine America's sovereignty, make America unable to protect itself. And we're going to get rid of them.' And they came into office, I think, with that as a policy objective. And 9/11 provided a useful way of taking that forward.”
The argument that international laws endanger national sovereignty can be heard from diverse voices across the political spectrum with regard to a variety of issues.
Regarding trade policy, for instance, progressive stalwart Ralph Nader warned against “sovereignty shredding” and said:
“The decisions are now in Geneva, bypassing our courts, our regulatory agencies, our legislatures.”
The conservative John Birch Society objects to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, which is purportedly a non-binding initiative to build “cooperative relations” between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The Society argues:
“Plans include a 'free trade zone with a common security perimeter,' thus erasing established international borders. U.S. citizens would then effectively surrender their citizenship to the North American Union (NAU)... The John Birch Society believes the American people should oppose any programs or projects that would replace our constitutional system and/or combine our government with the very different Canadian and Mexican governmental systems — effectively destroying the United States of America.”
What do you think?
How should nation-states balance national sovereignty with international regulation and cooperation?
What are instances in which international law has proved beneficial? Detrimental? Explain.
Since international officials are not voted into office, can international law be democratic? Why or why not?
In her conversation with Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL this week, media expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson suggested that politicians' campaign ads and other media appearances are akin to puzzle pieces that together form a larger, albeit ambiguous, narrative of the candidates' lives, characters, and campaigns:
"We elect a person, not a set of issues... The strength of an underlying biographical narrative is extraordinarily important. You can't underestimate its importance when you're attacked, as every candidate will be, with a counter story... One of the things that advertising is able to do is to make some things more important in your decision about who should be president. And so ads are always a contest about what is important as an issue and what is important as an attribute about the candidate... There's an element of emotion in all of this... And we shouldn't lose track of the fact that advertising doesn't exist in isolation. People are drawing material from news, from what they are talking with their friends about, from the front pages into advertising to create a composite message"
What do you think?
Do you agree that Americans vote for candidates as people rather than for their "set of issues?"
Can sound bites and 30-second ads sufficiently inform citizens about the issues, the candidates, and/or the policy differences between them? If so, has this happened so far in the race to November?
How would you like to see candidates and issue groups use the media to elevate political discourse?
(Photo by Robin Holland)
Conversing with Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL this week, THE AGE OF AMERICAN UNREASON author Susan Jacoby offered various reasons for what she calls “an overarching crisis of memory and knowledge” in America, including our educational system:
“You shouldn't have to be an intellectual or a college graduate to know that the sun doesn't revolve around the earth. There's been a huge failure of education. I do agree with many cultural conservatives about this: I think schools over the last 40 years [have been] just adding things, for example African-American history [and] women's history. These are all great additions, and necessary, but what they've done in addition to adding things is they really have placed less emphasis on the overall culture, cultural things that everybody should know. People getting out of high school should know how many Supreme Court justices there are. Most Americans don't.”
What do you think?
Do you agree with Jacoby that America faces “an overarching crisis” of civic irrationality and ignorance?
If so, to what extent does the problem lie with America’s educational system? Politicians? The media?
Do these outlets reflect the priorities of interest groups more than essential knowledge for the public good? What reforms would you recommend to promote civic intelligence?
(NOTE: Another interview with Susan Jacoby from the Moyers archives is available here.
Several viewers have written in stating that the Constitution does not specifically state that the Supreme Court is the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution or all judicial review. Some legal scholars maintain that Article III does imply it and many argue that Marbury V. Madison only formalized that authority. )
In the JOURNAL this week, WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO? authors and budget scrutinizers Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson contend that Washington’s fiscal irresponsibility is propelling America toward troubled times.
Scott Bittle said: “Eventually, if nothing is done, by 2040 every dollar the federal government has will be taken in by Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the money we’ve already borrowed... Right now, one of the few areas of bipartisanship in Washington is the willingness not to deal with the problem... The war is certainly making our financial problems worse. But it’s not the sole cause and it’s not the sole answer."
Jean Johnson said:
“People don’t realize that the country has been in the red 31 out of the last 35 years, in good times and bad... There is no way to solve this problem without either raising taxes or cutting programs, or doing some of both. Right now that is a political death sentence, and we have to change that... We’re all gonna have to give a little and we’re all gonna have to live with some things that are not our first choice, but not doing anything is so much worse.”
What do you think?
How, if at all, do you suggest the tax code be altered to ease the government’s fiscal crunch?
What, if any, programs should be reduced or cut to balance the budget?
What other suggestions do you have to bring the federal budget into the black?
Last week, Bill Moyers asked viewers what book, other than the Bible, they recommend the next President bring to the White House. In the clip below, he reviews many of your submissions and reveals his own pick for the future President-elect.
We invite you to continue sharing your thoughts on Moyers' and others' recommendations and submitting your own suggestions for Presidential reading.
(Please note that due to your overwhelming response our "complete list" keeps growing and growing. We invite you to view our books feature, complete with slideshow of popular suggestions and video of authors, as well as, peruse all the suggestions on the blog.)
Here are the current top titles.
- Naomi Klein, THE SHOCK DOCTRINE
- Howard Zinn, A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
- Kim Michaels, THE ART OF NON-WAR
- Jared Diamond, COLLAPSE
- Chalmers Johnson, BLOWBACK triology
- Tom Paine, COLLECTED WORKS/COMMON SENSE
- Al Gore, ASSAULT ON REASON/AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
- David Cay Johnston, FREE LUNCH
- George Orwell, 1984/ANIMAL FARM
- Naomi Wolff, THE END OF AMERICA: LETTERS TO A YOUNG PATRIOT
- Greg Mortenson, THREE CUPS OF TEA
- Barbara Ehrenreich, NICKLE AND DIMED
- Barbara Tuchman, MARCH OF FOLLY
- Doris Kearns Goodwin, TEAM OF RIVALS
- David Korten, THE GREAT TURNING
- John Steinbeck, THE GRAPES OF WRATH
- Ayn Rand, ATLAS SHRUGGED
- John Dean, BROKEN GOVERNMENT
- John Perkins, CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HITMAN
- James Carroll, HOUSE OF WAR
- Thomas Friedman, THE WORLD IS FLAT
- Lao Tzu, TE TAO CHING
- Tim Weiner, LEGACY OF ASHES
- Dr. Seuss (THE LORAX, HORTON HEARS A WHO, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO, IF I RAN THE ZOO)
(Photo by Robin Holland)
Last week, media expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson, accepted viewer questions regarding the road to November.
Her response is as follows, and we invite you comment below:
Continue reading "Kathleen Hall Jamieson Answers Your Questions" »
You may have been familiar with the scrutiny of Blackwater¹s mercenary army, or followed the troubles with oversight at the State Department, but chances are you hadn¹t heard of Lurita Doan. She isn¹t exactly a household name. So it might be surprising that, as head of the General Services Administration, Doan oversees $500 billion dollars worth of federal assets.
On the JOURNAL, Rep.Henry Waxman explains how an investigation that started with leaks about possible favoritism in awarding government contracts eventually uncovered documents and testimony that convinced Waxman that Doan had violated the Hatch Act, a law prohibiting federal employees from using government resources for partisan purposes. Waxman was so shocked by what the Committee found that he took the unusual step of asking Doan to resign at the end of the hearings. The Office of Special Counsel, which conducted a separate investigation of Doan, concluded that Doan should be "disciplined to the fullest extent for her serious violation of the Hatch Act and insensitivity to cooperating fully and honestly in the course of our investigation." Yet today Doan still heads the GSA.
Be sure to check out Exposé's coverage of the scandal.
What do you think about the Doan case? Do you think there should be another avenue of recourse for the American people to hold political appointees accountable for their behavior?
(Photo by Robin Holland)
Conversing with Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL this week, author John Grisham said:
“We still have two million people in prison in this country right now. Two million. Our prisons are choked, they’re so full. And most of them are non-violent. Most of them – and we’re spending between $40,000 and $80,000 somewhere to house them, every guy in prison. Now, somebody’s not doing the math here... Lock the bad ones away. But you gotta rethink everybody else. You gotta rethink the young kids who are in there because of crack cocaine. They need help. And if they serve five years they get out there and do the same thing over and over again. The system’s getting worse.”
What do you think?
Do you agree with John Grisham that our criminal justice system should be rethought?
Why do you think the system works the way it does?
What reforms to our criminal justice system would you recommend?
In his conversation with Bill Moyers on this week’s JOURNAL, journalist Craig Unger said:
“It does seem at times we don’t seem aware of the consequences of our actions. We go around talking about democracy, but the Saudis, of course, are a brutal theocracy. There’s not much in the way of human rights there. The whole vision of democratizing the Middle East, I think, really, in practical terms, has fallen by the wayside. And America’s objectives really, when it comes down to it, seem to be Israel’s security and oil... The whole vision is in tatters right now. And it’s very unclear what options the United States has... Our policies are so full of contradictions. And I think if you go back to the roots of it, it was built on so many misconceptions that a lot of this is coming home to roost.”
What do you think?
Is Unger correct that Israel’s security and oil are the foundations of America’s policies in the Middle East?
Does U.S. involvement with and support of non-Democratic regimes undermine the goal of “democratizing the Middle East?” Is that an appropriate objective of American foreign policy?
How would you reformulate American foreign policy to fit the world of 2008?
(Photo by Robin Holland)
(Photo by Robin Holland)
 Conversing with Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL this week, investigative reporter David Cay Johnston said:
"Get rich by working hard, working smarter, coming up with a better mouse-trap. Don’t get rich by getting the government to pass a law that sticks the government’s hand into my pocket, takes money out of it, and gives it to you. That’s not right. That’s not a fair playing field. Adam Smith warned again and again that it is the nature and tendency of business people to want to put their thumb on the scale and, even better, to get the government to put the thumb on the scale for their benefit... You need entrepreneurs to have a good society. I don’t have any problem with entrepreneurs. But we need to have a system that also fairly distributes... When we have people who make billon-dollar-a-year incomes and pay 15 percent taxes and janitors who pay the same tax rate and school teachers who pay a 25 percent tax rate, something’s amiss."
What do you think?
Is America’s present tax system unfair? If so, what do you suggest?
Does government have the responsibility to pursue redistribution of wealth? If so, what are reasonable expectations for such a policy?
(Photo by Robin Holland)
Reviewing Professor Harvey J. Kaye’s book THOMAS PAINE AND THE PROMISE OF AMERICA in THE NEW YORK TIMES, historian Joseph Ellis wrote:
“'The promise of America' that Paine glimpsed so lyrically at the start cannot be easily translated into our 21st-century idiom without distorting the intellectual integrity of its 18th-century origins... In the wake of Darwin's depiction of nature, Freud's depiction of human nature, the senseless slaughter of World War I and the genocidal tragedies of the 20th century, Paine's optimistic assumptions appear naïve in the extreme. What a reincarnated Paine would say about our altered political and intellectual landscape is impossible to know. Kaye hears his voice more clearly and unambiguously than I do, a clarity of conviction that I envy. My more muddled position is that bringing Paine's words and ideas into our world is like trying to plant cut flowers.”
Responding to this review in his JOURNAL interview, Kaye said:
“I got to the end and I thought, 'How sad. The loss of hope, the loss of aspiration - how un-American,’ I almost said... Americans should always be trying to plant flowers. There are ways of sprouting things anew, and that’s what America’s about. We have no reason to fear. We have no reason to be cynical, no reason to be desperate...
We need to have this kind of confidence in our fellow citizens that they somehow are able to take advantage of that confidence. It's our job to join with our fellow citizens and join them in the courage that we have.”
What do you think?
Is cynicism about the direction of the United States “un-American?”
How much can “confidence in our fellow citizens” cure the ills of our body politic?
If such confidence can be effective, how can ordinary citizens “plant flowers” for a better nation and world?
(Photo by Robin Holland)
By Kathleen Hall Jamieson
 1) I recommend not watching the coverage immediately before the debate and, when the debate is finished, turn the television off and talk with your family about what you saw and what was important to you. And think about what you saw.
2) Candidates make different assumptions about government's role, about economic policy, about the value of government regulation, about the role of the US in the world, about appropriate use of military power, about US relationships with other countries... and the like. What are the governing philosophies of the candidates?
3) Come to a debate with a list of the issues that matter to you and ask what you learned about each candidate's record and promises on those issues. Where are they similar and how do they differ?
4) When a candidate promises a new program or any move that will reduce government revenue -- how will the candidate pay for it? Increase the deficit? Cut spending elesewhere and if so where? Raise taxes? On whom?
5) How accurate are candidates' descriptions of opponents' programs? And how accurate are a candidate's descriptions of his or her own record?
6) Is the candidate willing to tell voters things they don't want to hear about the challenges facing the country and what is required to address them?
7) If the country were faced with a crisis, what can you know from the candidates' past performance, character, and dispositions about whether the country would be in good hands?
Continue reading "Guest Blogger: Debate Watching 101 with Kathleen Hall Jamieson" »
(Photos by Robin Holland)
 Discussing elections with Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL this week, Kathleen Hall Jamieson highlighted the importance of citizens left out by the polarized and exclusive process of selecting Presidential nominees:
“You could say that at issue in both Iowa and New Hampshire is going to be: Where are the independents going and what does that say about the country? We tend to think, because the primaries are so structured around party, that this is about Republicans and it's about Democrats. And Ron Paul only gets into this discussion because he comes in as a libertarian but runs as a Republican in the party... But we forget in the press that people who vote and the people who are governed are not only Democrats and Republicans. There are libertarians there. There are undecideds there. There are people who legitimately say ‘I don’t identify with any of this. I’ll call myself independent.’”
 In his interview with Moyers, Ron Paul suggested that America’s two-party system belies our democratic rhetoric.
“We send boys over there to promote democracy in Iraq, but we don’t really have democracy here. If you’re in a third party, if you’re in the Green Party or Libertarian Party, you don’t get any credibility. You can’t get on debates. You can’t get on ballots hardly at all. It’s very, very difficult. And the two parties are the same. You don’t really have a democratic choice here.
Foreign policy never changes. Domestic fiscal policy, the welfare entitlement system never changes. Monetary policy won’t even be discussed. And that’s both parties. The vehicle that you use I think is not as relevant as the message. And that has been what has driven me, the fact that we need to change course in this country.”
What do you think?
Does the two-party system adequately provide citizens with real choices on various issues? If not, can citizens reform the parties to change this?
Does the two-party system essentially mandate the exclusion of serious third-party contenders?
As Ron Paul’s Web-based, grassroots-driven campaign has seen some success, do you think the Internet can democratize the political process and/or the two-party system?
(Photos by Robin Holland)
In her conversation with Bill Moyers on this week’s JOURNAL, Kathleen Hall Jamieson discussed the media's influence on ‘outsider’ candidates like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich:
"Those two have provided a clear alternative in the debates and expanded the range of discourse within each political party. Alternative parties don’t get to have debates. They don’t get that kind of television coverage. We don’t have any way to have those ideas percolate back into the mainstream. We don’t have any way for the public to see that those are legitimate and viable options and as a result, potentially, to rally behind them. And so, when those voices are marginalized, where people are taken out of the debate, that’s problematic for the process.”
 Dennis Kucinich agrees. Having been rejected from THE DES MOINES REGISTER debate before the Iowa caucuses and now the ABC News debate before New Hampshire, Kucinich tells Moyers:
"How can you have a debate if you don’t have a voice that challenges all the others? Right now every other Democrat on that stage will be for keeping our troops in Iraq through at least 2013. Every other Democrat on the stage will be there to keep a for-profit healthcare system going with all of these Americans who don’t have coverage. Everyone else on the stage will be there for the continuation of NAFTA and the WTO. I mean, my position on the American political scene is to show people there’s a whole different direction that America can take here at home and in the world. And the Democratic Party in narrowing the choices and the media in trying to block the point of view that I represent is really doing a disservice to the American people.”
What do you think?
Do you agree that media and its political coverage has too great an influence on the elections?
Does mainstream media effectively serve the public interest in elections and create informed voters? If not, what are ways in which it can improve?
Do you think we have too many or too few debates? Are we including enough participants in the debates?
(Photo by Robin Holland)
In his appearance on this week's BILL MOYERS JOURNAL, legal scholar Sanford V. Levinson suggested that various challenges that face our nation, including political gridlock, can be traced to issues with our 220 year-old Constitution and might best be addressed with a new Constitutional convention. Levinson discussed his vision of such a scenario:
"I would have 700 or so of our fellow citizens chosen at random. Meet for two years, pay them the salary for those two years of a Justice of the Supreme Court [or] United States Senator because they would be fulfilling the highest possible function of citizenship. Give them time to reflect and learn about these issues... The only way you would ever get significant change is if you convince people across the political spectrum... If, on the other hand, you had a convention taken over by single issue zealots, whatever the single issue is, then the most likely thing is that the convention would just break down. People would simply start shouting at one another, and then it would never be ratified."
What do you think?
Do you agree with Levinson that many of America's challenges are rooted structurally in our aging Constitution? As Levinson asks, "Is the Constitution sufficiently democratic?"
Do you think holding another national Constitutional convention would be a good idea? Is it feasible?
If there were to be another Constitutional convention, which issues would you like to see addressed?
(Photo by Robin Holland)
 In his conversation with Bill Moyers on this week’s JOURNAL, MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann addressed critics who liken his brand of editorializing to that of the conservative commentators he decries:
"It's the most vulnerable point because it bothers me, too. The one criticism that I think is absolutely fair [is that] we're doing the same thing. It becomes a nation of screechers. It's never a good thing. But emergency rules do apply... I think the stuff that I'm talking about is so obvious and will be viewed in such terms of certainty by history... I think only under these circumstances would I go this far out on a limb and be this vociferous about it."
What do you think?
Do you agree with those who describe Olbermann as a "Limbaugh for Lefties?" Can "vociferous" remarks --- either from Olbermann or conservative commentators --- contribute constructively to the national discourse?
Is it possible for reasoned, even-handed journalism to compete in today's marketplace of ideas?
Does the political polarization of news outlets as seen in cable news, blogs, talk radio, etc. undermine the potential for Americans of differing views to find common ground?
By Rick Karr
(photo by Robin Holland)
Next Tuesday (December 18), the five members of the Federal Communications Commission will decide whether or not the U.S. will go through another frenzy of media consolidation: They'll vote on Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's proposal to let newspapers buy radio and TV stations. Martin's plan is opposed by minority groups, a majority (pdf) of the public, and, as we report on this week's edition of THE JOURNAL, Capitol Hill lawmakers from both parties.
I tell my students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism that reporters shouldn't make predictions because if they turn out to be wrong, the reporter loses credibility. But I'm throwing caution to the wind to make some predictions about Tuesday's FCC vote, anyway:
Continue reading "Media Consolidation: What happens after the FCC vote?" »
(Photo by Robin Holland)
 In her conversation with Bill Moyers this week, Kathleen Hall Jamieson has this to say about some of the impact of the Internet on the political process:
"There’s more information available than there ever has been, and it’s more easily retrievable. So we can, within minutes, locate candidates’ issue positions, contrast them to other positions, search news interviews with the candidates where they’re held accountable for discrepancies between past and current positions… And you can hear in the candidates’ own voices their arguments for those issue positions, sometimes at great length – greater than you’re going to find in ads or greater than you’re going to f
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