Hey,
Finally got News Flash: Journalism, Infotainment, and the Bottom-Line Business of Broadcast News by Bonnie M. Anderson. Anderson is (according to the back flap) "a twenty-seven year news veteran who has won seven Emmy awards and been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize...spent ten years at NBC News and close to ten at CNN." I'll share a few excerpts here in an effort to promote this VERY IMPORTANT book which I hope gets the attention it deserves. Have already emailed The Daily Show suggesting that Anderson be booked as a guest. Surely all the "News" networks will boycott her. Here's an excerpt from the beginning of her chapter on Fox:
To call what often appears on the Fox News Channel (FNC) "real journalism" is ludicrous. To claim that it is "fair and balanced" is equally preposterous...the damage this so-called news network has inflicted on the reputation, professionalism, and ethics of good journalism is devastating. Viewers, the First Amendment, and democracy are under attack. And that is the part that saddens me and many, many other journalists...{FNC) is the ideological poster child for what is wrong with American journalism...the mouthpiece of the conservative right, the propaganda wing of the Republican Party; biased and dishonest, it reports news with a right-wing slant, ignores stories that challenge its point of view, and violates nearly every principle of good journalism... Fox is setting the most dangerous precedent, one that threatens the very foundations of journalism.(pp. 187-88)
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I'll dive into this excellent book tonight and hope other DUers will be moved to check it out (of your library) or buy it.
CYD
Here's a bn link to the book:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=CJ5zPGc9qR&isbn=0787972851&itm=1