Television

Market Media Meltdown

Danny Schechter : U.S. Economy

Financial news outlets, tethered to a mission to pump up confidence and support their advertisers, helped fuel the subprime meltdown.
Mickey Mouse Media

Eric Alterman

A serious debate focused about torture, wiretapping, food prices, world hunger... oh, wait. That's the kind of fairy tale they don't do at Disney.

2007

Writers of the World Unite

Luvh Rakhe : Internet & New Media

Striking members of the Writers Guild of America are bringing the labor movement something it hasn't had for a long time: an audience.
Permalancers, Unite!

Anya Kamenetz : Labor Organizing & Activism

Freelancers staged a walkout at Viacom this week, instigating one of the most unlikely and successful labor campaigns in recent memory.
Bonfire of the Disney Princesses

Barbara Ehrenreich : Children & Child Care

Disney's idea of sex doesn't belong in the pre-K playroom. Parents, unite: make a holiday bonfire of all that plastic and tulle: let your girls be girls again.
Writers Strike, Silence Falls

Barbara Ehrenreich : Film Industry

As the screenwriters strike enters its second week, take a moment to appreciate those without whom late night comics are struck mute, movies are left unmade and on TV, there's nothing but reality.
The Colbert Rapport

Larry Bogad : Campaigns & Elections

Like other prank campaigns, Stephen Colbert's bid for President promised brilliant satire. It's a shame he's called it quits.
Burns's 'War': What Is It Good For?

Eric Alterman : Media Analysis

An increasingly bookless universe has become the wasteland so many have feared. In a perfect world, we'd have more Ken Burnses expressing a multiplicity of views.
Dirty Sexy Television

Simon Maxwell Apter

Who needs reality TV when you can revel in the decadence, dysfunction and dirty laundry of the fictional super-rich?
Does Sarah Silverman Suck?

Kera Bolonik : Humor

The raunchy, racy comedian makes us laugh and cringe.
Ken Burns's War

Christopher Hayes

His nostalgic PBS series casts WWII as acrucible of meaning. Too bad it lacked a tighter focus on the moral failure of combat.
Olbermann Rules!

Marvin Kitman : Media Analysis

He's the guy who put the guts back into TV journalism.
Mad Men's Retro Charm

Anna McCarthy

A cable hit's unabashed attachment to filthy habits, bad parenting and horrendous gender roles shows how far we've come from the Sixties.
The Sopranos' Last Song

Max Fraser

With an ominous sense of foreboding, Tony Soprano takes his last drive down the Jersey Turnpike, after seven seasons and 86 bloody, sexy, curse-ridden episodes.
Farewell, Tony and Carm

Max Fraser : Organized Crime

As we begin our final hour with Tony Soprano and his two families, it's hard not to feel a familiar sense of loss.
The Simpsons Hit 400

Simon Maxwell Apter : Humor

Over eighteen seasons and three presidential eras, The Simpsons has paid badly animated homage to all that sucks in America.
Katrina vs. Colbert

Katrina vanden Heuvel & Stephen Colbert : Humor

Katrina vanden Heuvel appears on The Colbert Report to debate the host on the question of truthiness and much more.

2006

Hooray for Right-Wing Hollywood

Max Blumenthal : Media Analysis

Right-wing culture warriors gathered in LA to praise ABC for its flawed 9/11 docudrama, talk up a conservative version of The Daily Show and release a thriller fueled by a nativist agenda.
Election Night From Hell

David W. Moore : Campaigns & Elections

As Fox News marks its tenth birthday, recall the fateful night in November 2000 that its election desk broke all the rules reporting the election of George W. Bush. Will Fox do it again this year?
Screamin' at the Machine

Dave Zirin : Journalists & Journalism

We should be cheering at sports events and screaming at politicians. But these days, it's vice versa. Now that ESPN's Screamin' Stephen A. Smith is acting like a pundit, things could change.
Lying About 9/11? Easy as ABC

Eric Alterman : Media Analysis

Why did the network humiliate its news division, ignore historians and insult Americans with a 9/11 docudrama that it knew was a tissue of lies?
A Klatch of Civilizations

Patricia J. Williams : Racism & Discrimination

As Survivor races to the bottom by dividing this season's contenders into race-based tribes, perhaps we can look to Starbucks for new models of how to blend in.
Bush's Sitcom Nominee

Celia Viggo Wexler

Warren Bell honed his reputation writing sitcoms and lobbing politically incorrect bombs for National Review Online. Now he's Bush's nominee for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's board of directors.
ABC 9/11 Docudrama's Right-Wing Roots

Max Blumenthal : September 11

How conservative zealot David Horowitz produced and promoted ABC's flawed docudrama, The Path to 9/11.

2005

Pop Torture

Richard Kim : Cultural Criticism & Analysis

Pop culture does more than validate the claim that torture could help foil bombs seconds before detonation. In shows like 24, where scenes of sensory deprivation are mixed with family melodrama, torture is so routine that it seems one more plot device to create intimacy in characters. The reality is that torture isolates its victims from any sense of intimacy.
Rogue Scholars

Tara McKelvey : Cultural Criticism & Analysis

Defenders of torture dwell not only in the White House and Pentagon, but in the halls of academia. When prominent law professors and academics cite the fantastic "ticking-bomb theory," they not only spread misinformation and foster a perpetual state of fear, but they use their credentials to legitimize a culture of torture.
The Putsch at Public Broadcasting

Eric Alterman : Journalists & Journalism

With professionals at the top forced out and replaced by GOP fundraisers, the right-wing takeover of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is now plain to see. Though CPB's Inspector General has exposed former chair Kenneth Tomlinson's ethical transgressions, what else are they hiding?
President Thelma

Richard Goldstein : Feminism & Women

Is Commander-in-Chief softening up the country for President Hillary? Americans may not not be ready to put a woman in the White House, but they may have calmed down enough to contemplate the pleasures of female power.
Madam President, Madam President

Katha Pollitt : Feminism & Women

As the backlash against women gets daily more open and absurd, our real-life female politicians seem paralyzed. It's up to television now: Run, Geena, run!
Out of Touch on 'The OC'

Christine Smallwood

What makes Fox's The OC so addictive is its California-kissed story lines and appealing characters. But what is it about women the show doesn't understand?
Kanye West, Unplugged

Adam Howard : Music

NBC took offense when Kanye West took an unscripted swipe at President Bush during a benefit concert for hurricane victims. But somebody had to say it.
The Buzz and the Fury

Richard Lingeman : Books

Faulkner does Oprah.
As I Lay Reading

J.M. Tyree : Literacy & Reading

William Faulkner makes Oprah's Book Club this summer.
Game Theory

Russell Jacoby : Arts, Culture, & Entertainment

What does today's culture of television and video games say about society?
Beware the Holy War

Peter Bergen : Al Qaeda

An analysis of the BBC's documentary on Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism.
Supernanny State

Alfie Kohn : Children & Child Care

TV shows that tell you how not to raise your children.
Al Gore Gets Down

Ari Berman : Al Gore

Al Gore's Current TV debuts today. But will his new network transform the media?
On the Risk of Having a Notoriously Foul-Mouthed Comedian Host the Oscars

Calvin Trillin : Dick Cheney
In Radical Matrimony

Baz Dreisinger : South America
Visible Man

Greg Tate : Sports
How Low Can the Pundits Go?

Eric Alterman : Journalists & Journalism

What do Robert Novak and Armstrong Williams have to do before they're completely discredited?