Nation Topics - CNN | The Nation

The article looks at how a number of academics and professors are supporting the concept of "torture warrants" and harsh interrogation techniques. The author reviews how Havard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz has discussed his support of such measures on CNBC's "Capital Report," ABC's "Nightline," and CNN's "Crossfire." The article discusses the work of other well known academics who have taken a "toughen up" stance on torture, including Richard Posner and John Yoo.

Comments on a American news media, which the author contends are not reporting on the deaths of prisoners in American hands since the beginning of 2005. Suggestion that major news media are not looking into the number of prisoners who have died at the U.S. military controlled prisons and Guantánamo camp in Cuba; Major news agencies that have not reported on the deaths of detainees, including CNN, Fox, and MSNBC; Indication from LexisNexis that the "New York Times" is nearly alone in mentioning deaths; View that American deaths from September 11 are reported, but not the Iraqi deaths from war.

The article focuses on a CNN controversy that led to Eason Jordan's resignation from the network, and the power of blogs. Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, observed at an off-the-record meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos in late January that he believed the US military had aimed at journalists and killed twelve of them. Jordan sent a note to colleagues saying he quit to "prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished by the controversy." This is silly. There's nothing wrong with a global news organization weathering "controversy." In fact, it's good for ratings. What CNN really feared was something it will not acknowledge: the influence and power of the right-wing blogs. Neither the sketchy quality of the available evidence nor Jordan's immediate clarification made a significant impression on right-wing bloggers, who initially demanded his scalp and then danced on his professional grave.

The article comments on the PBS decision to broadcast Tucker Carlson as a "balance" to the television program, "Now With Bill Moyers." PBS is creating a show around CNN's conservative talking head Tucker Carlson, and creating a program for the extremist editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. Still, the insult of throwing up Carlson to quiet the whining of crybaby conservatives pales in comparison to the injury of offering up millions of dollars in taxpayer and viewer-donated resources of our public broadcasting service to the far-right ideologues behind the Journal Editorial Report. It's difficult to imagine a more calculated effort to undermine PBS's intended mission of providing alternative programming than this subsidy to a wealthy, conservative corporation to produce yet another right-wing cable chat show. When Moyers retires at the end of the year, his chosen replacement will be David Brancaccio, a reporter who comes from that hotbed of anticapitalist agitation, NPR's Marketplace. Given the right's domination of television talk shows and its already strong representation on public broadcasting, the only imaginable explanation for the decision to put PBS resources in the hands of well-financed, well-distributed, unabashedly partisan and journalistically challenged ideologues can be naked political pressure.

Reports on initiatives aimed at getting young Americans to register to vote. Hip-Hop Team Vote, a voter registration initiative launched by the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), an organization founded by Russell Simmons and Benjamin Chavis; Examples of the events sponsored by HSAN; Rock the Vote, which held a forum on CNN; Voter registration Web site Punkvoter, which opposes the re-election of George W. Bush; Response of Democratic presidential candidates to the initiatives.

The author criticizes the perceived failure of cable television news network CNN to remain objective during its coverage of the Iraqi War. Adherence to the Katie Gibbs school of journalism--stenographers dutifully copying down and repeating back what the Big Government Officials say--has made CNN, its credibility and dignity, a huge casualty of this war. CNN built its reputation as the television news of record, covering international stories with a depth and breadth the broadcast networks couldn't match. But now, "the most trusted name in news" (as its news crawl has been asserting for months) looks to many of us like the administration of President George W. Bush's ministry of propaganda. While CNN did air debates between those opposed to and those in favor of the war, the overall common sense it conveyed was that Democratic opponents should bite their tongues. CNN has, sadly, descended to new lows, and it will take some real work to make many of us not think of the word "lackey" whenever we see or hear those initials.

Reports that Comcast, the top owner of cable television companies in the United States, rejected the Peace Action Education Fund's request to purchase airtime for advertisements opposing an attack on Iraq. Significance of this decision in the debate over the dangers of media monopoly. Though the thirty-second ads featured calm restatements of mainstream concerns by a diverse group of Americans, Comcast declined to allow them to air on CNN in Washington, D.C., during the week of the State of the Union address because, it claimed, "we must decline to run any spot that fails to substantiate certain claims or charges." U.S. Federal Communications Commission chair Michael Powell said he saw no need to investigate its actions. But members of Congress, media union leaders and public interest organizations joined antiwar groups in charging censorship, and warning against a further loosening of ownership rules.

This article discusses the authenticity and reliability of the media reports in the United states. There is a value to the much-criticized crawl that zipped along at the bottom of CNN's window during the attack on Afghanistan, beneath clips of dirty traitors and soldier-heroes and starving refugees. As the world's other news ticked blithely by, trivialized by the pictures above it, the ephemeral, superficial crawl reminded people of the worth of words that do not move, and of stories told in columns of type, not in video clips or on film. Magazines and newspapers (and online versions of these) still often manage to tackle complex stories and say things that have meaning, unlike so much of the media. And meaning, which is so unusual now that content is dead meaning generates a ripple of excitement.

This article discusses liberal media in the United stats through an example of news channel CNN. CNN counts as "liberal" only in a universe where conservative political hegemony is so strong that critics have lost the ability to think clearly about anything. CNN does not cover trade from the perspective of the antiglobalization movement. It does not cover business from the perspective of the labor or environmental movements. It does not cover war from the perspective of the peace movement and it does not cover dictatorships from the perspective of their victims. It does not even cover U.S. President George W. Bush from the perhaps of the people who had their election subverted.

The article comments on Fox News Channel. Fox is obviously filling a niche. Since it started in 1996, ratings have soared, climbing more than 200 percent in the last quarter of 2000 from the same period the year before. During the fourth quarter of 2000 it started turning a profit, a year ahead of schedule. And in December, its ratings beat CNN in prime time, even though CNN reaches about 22 million more homes. Fox started in 1996, when anti-Clinton sentiment burned bright. The U.S. President George W. Bush Administration offers ample targets for left-wing fire.