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To Save Journalism, Return to Founding Principles
By John Nichols
This fall we are highlighting thinking about the future of journalism on The Nation's website, starting with a video from 2009 Nation/Campus Progress Student Journalism Conference. In it, I discuss the collapse of old media as a platform for serious news reporting and commentary and the failure -- so far -- of new media to come up with functional models for producing journalism sufficient to meet the requirements of citizens in a democracy.
After running through the details of the current crisis, which is seeing the loss of more than 1,000 journalists a month to layoffs and downsizings, the shuttering of international and Washington bureaus at the most rapid rate in the nation's history and the closures of Pulitzer Prize-winning newspapers, I argued for government intervention to promote diverse and competitive media that provides citizens with the information they need while highlighting the best and boldest ideas of the political left and right.
That argument is, of course, a reprise of the thinking of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who at the founding of the United States established postal subsidies and a host of related initiatives to develop and sustain and free and competitive press. It leads to the core conclusion: "The corporate sector and the private foundation sector will not or cannot solve this current crisis. If there is to be journalism in the 21st century, there must be government intervention -- and it must be the same sort of intervention as we had at the founding of the American experiment."
(13) CommentsNovember 12, 2009
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Harry Reid Gets It: The Issue is Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!
By John Nichols
While most of official Washington was all hot and bothered about health care reform last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was paying attention to a far more serious concern.
The unemployment rate had spiked, moving into double digits for the first time in more than a quarter century.
Reid's response was the right one.
(116) CommentsNovember 11, 2009
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Call Joe Lieberman's Bluff; Have a Real Inquiry
By John Nichols
Following the horrific shootings at the Fort Hood army base in Texas, Connecticut Senator Lieberman pulled a thread from the right-wing blogosphere and called for a congressional inquiry into whether the incident was an act of "terrorism."
Not domestic terrorism, but full-blown terrorism that is comparable to what is seen in the most unstable of warzones.
"This was an attack on America troops," Lieberman chirped on Fox New Sunday. "You've got to see it as if 12 American troops were killed in Afghanistan."
(239) CommentsNovember 10, 2009
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Six Smart Progressive Complaints About House Health Bill
By John Nichols
The Affordable Health Care for America Act was approved by the U.S. House Saturday night with overwhelming support from progressive Democrats who serve in the chamber and from a president who was nominated and elected with the enthusiastic support of progressive voters.
But that does not mean that informed and engaged progressives are entirely enthusiastic about the measure.
In fact, some are openly and explicitly opposed to it -- among them former Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and CPC member Eric Massa, D-New York, both of whom broke with the majority of their fellow Democrats to vote "no" when the House approved the measure by a narrow 220-215 vote Saturday.
(266) CommentsNovember 8, 2009
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House Passes Health Reform, But Without Reproductive Rights
By John Nichols
The U.S. House of Representatives answered "the call of history" put to it by President Obama Saturday and voted 220-215 in favor of the most sweeping expansion of health-care coverage since the enactment of Medicare and Medicaid Act of 1965.
House Democrats burst into sustained applause at 11:08 EST as the majority-making 218th vote was cast in favor of the the Affordable Health Care for America Act.
The measure ultimately received the votes of 219 Democrats.
(275) CommentsNovember 7, 2009
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Double-Digit Unemployment Is Obama's No. 1 Challenge
By John Nichols
For the first time in more than a quarter century, unemployment in the United States has reached double digits.
That's bad economic news for America, which has now been shedding jobs for 22 consecutive months.
That's bad social news for the Americans who are out of work, for their families and for their communities, especially when we consider data that tells us 35 percent of jobless men and women have been looking for work for more than six months.
(170) CommentsNovember 6, 2009
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Horror at Fort Hood Inspires Horribly Predictable Islamophobia
By John Nichols
Last Thursday's shooting spree at the Fort Hood army base in Texas -- which left 13 people dead and 29 wounded -- was of course the "horrific outburst of violence" that President Obama bemoaned and condemned.
But, because the soldier who was quickly identified as the gunman had a name that led to the presumption that he was Muslim, the incident inspired an all-too-predictable explosion of Islamophobia.
News reports named the man who used two handguns in the assault on his fellow soldiers at a base that is a prime point of departure for troops headed to Iraq and Afghanistan as Major Malik Nidal Hasan. The major, who was wounded during the incident, was identified as a psychiatrist who had served in the Department of Psychology at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Bethesda Naval Facility in Bethesda, Maryland, before his transfer to Fort Hood.
(351) CommentsNovember 5, 2009
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House Adopts Know-Nothing Approach to Middle-East
By John Nichols
The Congress of the United States went out of its way this week to embarrass itself.
At issue was a House resolution "calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict' in multilateral fora."
The point of the resolution was to tell the Obama administration in general, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in particular, to do everything in its power to prevent serious consideration of the Goldstone Report, a study of alleged violations of international human rights laws and humanitarian standards by the Israeli Defense Forces operating in Palestinian territory on the Gaza Strip.
(21) CommentsNovember 5, 2009
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A Year Later, Obama Needs to Start Campaigning Again
By John Nichols
MADISON, WI --One year ago Tuesday, Barack Obama redefined American electioneering to such an extent that it was possible to believe that the success of his transformational campaign would lead to a transformational presidency.
After all, he had already changed most of what America "knew" about politics.
The freshman senator from Illinois had not only won an election for the presidency of the United States on November 4, 2008.
(195) CommentsNovember 4, 2009
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House Wins Offset Gubernatorial Losses for Obama, Dems
By John Nichols
White House aides announced Tuesday night that President Obama was not watching off-year election results on television.
Actually, the president should have been watching.
Indeed, he should have stayed up late.
(284) CommentsNovember 3, 2009
John Nichols
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