Greg Mitchell | The Nation

I suppose the question of how the media have covered the Newtown massacre ranks down the list of pressing issues raised by the tragedy, at least for the moment, but as the memorials and funerals pass, deeper discussion should ensue.

What has gotten the lion’s share of complaints: the insensitive interviews with school kids asked to re-live the horror, plus the usual over-the-top “grief porn.” Hopefully we will soon see more of a focus on how the media have miscovered, or not covered, the issues of gun violence and gun rights, and mental health treatment, in past years.

And we’ll watch for pundits and analysts pushing Obama to talk tougher, and then go beyond talking the talk to walking the walk. Here’s a new Roger Cohen column at The New York Times that pushes hard. Even Joe Scarborough claims he has changed his views.

This is highly relevant and interesting, as it comes at same time of debate over Zero Dark Thirty (see my take on that) and reports on the Senate’s critical official report on US use of torture.

Go here for results of this “Covering Torture” study (and graphs and charts) of how media have reported on torture in recent years, including uses of “euphemisms.” Based on research from October 2010 to October 2012, It compares different types of news outlets, plus examples within them. For example, Fox and CNN use other words for torture three out of four times but at MSNNC it’s a 50/50 situation.

Overall, print outlets are more likely to use the word “torture” than cable news shows.

Well, it looks like I’ll have to cast the deciding vote.  [UPDATE:  Here's my new piece,  as promised.]

For months I’ve read about, tweeted and posted early and late trailers for Zero Dark Thirty, and covered the controversy over whether it would help Obama before the election (and hence the postponement of its release until after it). Now it’s been picking up year-end awards—and I’ll finally watch a preview screening tonight. Then I’ll weigh in on the current controversy, which I’ve dubbed “Zero Dark Dirty.” So what follows below is fairly sketchy.

While the subject of the Kathryn Bigelow film was no secret, how it was executed—so to speak—remained under wraps until the past week, when more reviewers and pundits finally got to see it. The first major response to the role of torture in the film came from Frank Bruni in a tough column two days ago at the NYT.

That the Repulican Party, particularly in the race for the White House, reached new depths in the recent history of campaign lies is nothing new—you might say it’s gospel—for many of us. I wrote about that numerous times this year in my nearly-daily campaign coverage here, and it’s highlighted in my new e-book about the Obama-Romney race, aptly titled Tricks, Lies, and Videotape.

Yet, the extent of the GOP lies was rarely probed by the mainstream media, despite their extensive fact-checking this year. Too often even the more stringest reporters and pundits resorted to “they all do it” or “here’s one error from one side and here’s one from the other.” Of course “they all do it,” but few journalists were willing to judge who was worse, much worse. In fact, they usually were afraid to even use the word “lie.”

Well, Dan Froomkin, the veteran DC and campaign watcher for The Washington Post and Nieman, then Huff Post (where he is now exiting), has interviewed the nicely balanced pair of Norman Ornstein, from the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and Thomas Mann, of centrist/liberal Brookings, about their views of the campaign. Of course, the pair had drawn attention earlier this year with their book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, in which they concluded that the GOP had been captured by the far right and really gone off the rails. Ornstein joning in this assessment guaranteed attention.