Hanif on Media

News Media, New Media, Politics, Culture & Spiritual Perspectives from South Florida to Infinity.

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Alyssa Peterson: ‘The US Soldier Who Committed Suicide After She Refused To Take Part in Torture’

September 14th · George W. Bush, Iraq, news media

Like Pat Tillman’s, stories such as U.S. Military Intelligence Spc. Alyssa Peterson’s break your heart. Especially because anyone not blinded by fear, ignorance and/or hate could easily see (despite the assurances of Judith Miller, Ahmad Chalabi, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and sadly, Colin Powell), that what our country was about to do to Iraq was terribly wrong.

Also painfully clear was that as Americans we would pay terribly for what was being done in our name — though not as dearly as untold numbers of innocent Iraqis, and our fine servicemen and women.

A thank-you to reporter Kevin Elston, who would not let Alyssa Peterson’s story fade into the abyss like too many others; and to Greg Mitchell at The Nation, for reminding us of the injustice done her seven years ago this week.

— C.B. Hanif

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Quran Burning Story: How Media Embarrass Themselves

September 10th · Islam, Muslim, news media, Newspapers

As Jason Linkins is latest to confirm, this is a media story as much as anything:

Anatomy of an Epic Media Failure

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Hear hear: Media bolstering GOP/Faux News agenda

August 30th · news media

So, it isn’t just our imagination? Thanks Randy Shaw:

While right-wing media chooses stories that serve its political agenda, progressive media increasingly covers the same “news.”

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Times: Mayor’s Stance on Muslim Center Has Deep Roots

August 13th · 9/11, Islam, Muslim, news media, The New York Times

This piece limped to the finish. As if the editors feared catching flak too. But what a shame The New York Times wasn’t shedding this kind of light when Judith Miller and Ahmad Chalabi were cheerleading us into our disastrous invasion of a certain sovereign country that had no weapons of mass destruction, but does have plenty of oil…

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‘How conservatives are at war with the middle class…’

August 9th · news media, Obama administration

Beginning with the Reagan administration, and reaching its fullest realization during the presidency of George W. Bush, conservatives have systematically been acting to redistribute wealth from the middle class upward. The result has been the steady decay of the middle class, and it’s all a result of conservative policies, specifically involving taxes and deregulation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitchell-bard/krugmans-takedown-of-ryan_b_674845.html

… And other hard-to-find perspectives amid our blame-Obama, Faux News-driven news media:

Decline of the middle class as metaphor for decline of America

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/raymond-j-learsy/decline-of-the-middle-cla_b_675022.html

… Also:

Third World America: 11 Books predicting the collapse of the middle class

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/09/third-world-america-11-bo_n_672280.html#s122823

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Ace student journalists again on the case at NABJ

July 30th · NABJ, news media

Follow the National Association of Black Journalists 2010 Convention in San Diego all this weekend through the Student Multimedia Project. It’s one of the best things NABJ does. Don’t miss their daily convention reports in print editions of the NABJ Monitor and broadcast on NABJ TV (not to mention Twitter). Check out these kids who may be coming to a media market near you, and leave ’em a thumbs up or  high-five note of encouragement.

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Are ‘hyperlocals’ replacing traditional newspapers?

July 26th · news media, South Florida Times, The Coastal Star

Time weighs in with another update on a question that no matter where I go, comes up as soon as folks become aware of my news journalism background — “What’s happening to our newspaper(s)?” A nod to Jan Norris, mother hen to a bunch of us former Palm Beach Posties, for the alert on the Times piece.

Interestingly, the Time article’s comments underscore what most news organizations still are slow to recognize: Thanks to the Web, their craft has morphed from a monologue to a conversation.

There’s another problem: In our soon to be so-called “majority minority”  country, the Time piece still was talking about local news for, basically, whites.

In contrast, although The Coastal Star covers a niche of mostly white oceanside towns south of Palm Beach, it also regularly includes my Interfaith21 column, seeking to cover the waterfront of diversity on area and other spiritual traditions.

In addition, the South Florida Times, another newspaper for which I write, is fulling its self-stated mission of “elevating the dialogue” in print and online from an African-American perspective, led by Publisher Robert Beatty, former Miami Herald general counsel and VP, and Brad Bennett, a former Miami Herald and Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel editor.

The link from the Time article to “25 sites you can’t live without” also illustrates the problem. With no disrespect to any on the list, or to anyone else, does the Time editor really think we can’t live without Television Without Pity.com‘s TV series recaps and reviews, where on a scan of the home page, nary a soon-to-be-majority face was to be found?

Again, given that our children’s children’s children are likely to be paying for our nation’s misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, wouldn’t the range of information and views at Altmuslim or Informed Comment be more topical for such a list?

Or — since we’re on the subject of “What’s happening to our newspaper(s)?” —  how about an invaluable source for media watchers — the Journalisms online column by veteran Richard Prince, of whom not so coincidentally, commentator Faye Anderson said on her Facebook page today: “Happy Birthday to the Prince of Peacemaking’ among old and new media.”

In any event, it appears that the “hyperlocal” story soon will not be so whitebread.

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What — no NABJ words for NAACP? — Part II

July 23rd · news media

Thanks to my colleague Rochelle Riley, Detroit Free Press columnist, for begging the question: “Why would the NAACP believe anything it saw on Fox?”

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What — no NABJ words for NAACP?

July 22nd · news media

Statement from the National Association of Black Journalists on the Reaction of News Organizations Covering Shirley Sherrod:

(Also, while NABJ kept its comment media-centric, Betty Baye of Louisville Courier-Journal, one of my journalistic role models, weighs in nicely, as usual. — cbh)

WASHINGON (sic), DC, (July 22, 2010)-Today, the National Association of Black Journalists issued the following statement in response to the reaction of media organizations covering former U.S. Department of Agriculture staffer Shirley Sherrod:

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is dismayed by the profound failure of media organizations in their rush to report on the allegedly racist remarks of former U.S. Department of Agriculture staffer Shirley Sherrod.

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Sara Haji spanks Maureen Dowd — and other insight from the minds of Muslim ladies at Muslimah Media Watch

July 20th · InterFaith21.com, news media

That “Open Letter to Maureen Dowd?”  That’s what I was talking about at the conclusion of my last post over at InterFaith21.

Our increasingly discredited “mainstream” news organizations continue feeding a diet of Faux News from the right and the Dowds and Tom Friedmans on the left.

But the Internet is making accessible such folks as the knowledgeable Juan Cole. Also the ladies of Muslimah Media Watch where, on the subject of far-right politicians’ thinly veiled obsession with defining how Muslim women should dress, see here and here.

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