The rumor that had seemed obvious since last week turns out to be true: WTAX-AM 1240 has hired broadcasting veteran Bob Murray to host its morning drive-time “news watch”–the same shift left open back in February, when WTAX fired the rabblerousing Donald “One-Eyed Jack” Jackson. So in essence, Murray–who prides himself on being a gentleman–is […]
Opinion
Posted inOpinion
Unequal time
Over the last month, local news has bristled with nasty swipes at any and all who publicly opposed the war with Iraq. There’s a sad, wide gulf between the two groups who have followed the event most closely, who track every bootstep and weep for each life lost on the battlefield. Despite reporters’ shorthand, nobody […]
Posted inOpinion
From the top down
One of the stated major objectives of the American war in Iraq is to establish a “democratic” form of government. Yet when we look at the way decisions were made in our war policy, American democracy itself is found to be seriously lacking. The decision to go to war was one of the most important […]
Posted inOpinion
Young Americans
“Consider the life of a teenager: You have parents, teachers, telling you what to do. You have movies, magazines, and TV telling you what to do. But you know what you have to do. Your job, your purpose, is to get accepted.” So said Harry H., the nastily-nicknamed, wizened-beyond-his-years pirate radio jock in the 1990 […]
Posted inOpinion
Strange embedded fellows
Welcome to what NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw calls “the greatest televised event of the history of humankind.” The Iraq war has become a place where journalists and politics make strange embedded fellows. When networks go wall-to-wall with any story, they move fast to brand their coverage. It gets a catchy name, dramatic music, and flashy […]
Posted inOpinion
The world is watching
Lee Kyong-hee in the Korea Herald, Seoul Last Saturday afternoon, the host of a popular radio news show in Seoul pleaded with Korean parents to keep their children from television. It was hours after a thousand Tomahawks had pounded Baghdad. Watching the city reduced to smoldering rubble and its skies ablaze with soaring columns of […]
Posted inOpinion
Image conscious
Since the beginning of the new Iraq war, the Qatari news network Al Jazeera has been showing corpses. For a few days, pickings were slim: Several bombing casualties from the first night’s selective strike, then a few more on the following evenings. The station hit paydirt late last Friday and throughout Saturday. Al Jazeera provided […]
