Saturday, July 31, 2004



Czech out this web exclusive list of conventional wisdom on Amerikan values and their reality czechs Even Texans hook up in marriage, have children, put them through school, offer car rides to their teen friends and join clubs (especially gun clubs) and other organizations

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: The Downward Spiral of MEdia Abuse and Political Evasion
The dream may be, wrote Mary Riddell in the same paper, of a media respectful to politicians, mindful of their democratic duties and shorn of tatty stuff about Beckham's tattoos and Jemima's marriage. The result would be newspapers of such turgid blandness that nobody would ever buy them... the greatest causes can hang on the tackiest cases... Britain has rarely needed its flawed, contrary, trivia-obsessed free press more than it does now. And Andrew Neil, wrote in the same vein: The media is the lifeblood of democracy... though the specifics of their stories (the BBC Gilligan broadcast on government lying about WMD; the Daily Mirror fake pictures of British soldiers beating Iraqis) were wrong, both drew public attention to vital matters of public concern.
If the media doesn't have power over people's perceptions, then what is it doing? Above all, what is it doing to us? We in journalism haven't asked that question much. It is time we did, for if not us, who?

The most pockmarked ground in journalism is that of political reporting [ 2004 A Democratic Year?]
• · Micklethwait and Wooldridge: The Right Wing's Deep, Dark Secret
• · · See Also Spain, the government is putting the 'social' back in socialism
• · · · How did it come to this? I cannot remember a time when the gulf between Europeans and Americans was so wide: A letter to Europe from Philip Gordon and ; A letter to America from Timothy Garton Ash
• · · · · Web Exclusive Robert Kuttner: John Kerry could win by 2 million votes and still lose the e(l)ection... Three ways to fix the electoral system
• · · · · · · Web Exclusive Steven Hill and Rob Richie Fixing E(l)ections: Instant runoff voting [ How the Uncle Sam of Electoral Collages (sic) is stacking up]