The Editors write that the US should stop bullying the UN, Alexander Cockburn asks why the left is so afraid of the incompetent Karl Rove, Stuart Klawans reviews The Road to Guantánamo and Crossing the Bridge.

Articles

  • The National Entertainment State (Forum)

    If the promise of new media is to be fulfilled, progressives must chart a course of activism that confronts the increasing concentration of ownership among the Big Media powerhouses.

  • Brave New Media

    Robert Greenwald : We don't need to buy a network to get our message out--just creatively use an array of low-cost tools from the Internet to iPods, cellphones and whatever comes next.

  • Access of Evil

    Amy Goodman : Compliant coverage of the Iraq War proved the news business is morally compromised, no longer driven by creative people with something to tell but by global corporations with something to sell.

  • Fight for a Free Press

    Robert W. McChesney : The collapse of journalism and the rise of commercialism is sparking a reform movement that will fight to ensure the First Amendment endures in the digital age.

  • Co-opting Consumers of Color

    Makani Themba-Nixon : Fewer minority-owned outlets means fewer minorities in the media. With such threats to public discourse, what will become of our voices, points of view and interests?

  • The Self-Expression Sector

    Rebecca MacKinnon : New forms of participatory media have changed public discourse, enabling people to publish, share and disseminate their own media creations. But will only the affluent be able to play?

  • Digital Music Revolution

    Paul D. Miller : The music industry lives in fear of downloadable media, but artists have the vision to re-engineer our collective psyche.

  • Local Media Left Behind

    Ethan Michaeli : National media are increasingly catering to the highly mobile, globalized, mostly white middle class, leaving those who can't afford access to slip into a separate and unequal world of second-class information.

  • Stealth Media

    Ana Marie Cox : Corporations used to disguise their attempts to masquerade as "indie," but now they've become invisible to the naked eye.

  • Use the Tools

    Markos Moulitsas Zúniga : The fight over media consolidation is anachronistic. Progressives should focus instead on mastering the tools of new media--it's here, not in the corporate boardroom, where the new media wars will be fought and won.

  • The Death of News

    Mark Crispin Miller : The press that once went hoarse over Monica Lewinsky's dress is largely silent over the Bush regime's vast abuses of power.

  • Bush World

    Lakshmi Chaudhry : In the guise of giving us what we want, media giants have created a culture defined by untrammeled greed, the worship of power and a ruthless disregard for the public good.

  • Mega-merger Mania

    Eric Klinenberg : Americans overwhelmingly oppose media consolidation, but the FCC is poised to further relax media ownership rules.

  • A Ten-Point Plan for Media Democracy

    Jeffrey Chester : With Congress poised to pass legislation that rewrites the Telecom Act, here are ten action items for a media reform agenda.

  • The National Entertainment State, 2006

    After a decade of strategic mergers, impulsive couplings and messy divorces--the birth of new media--this chart shows that national media landscape still bears the oversized footprints of a handful of giant corporations.

Letters

Editorials & Comment

  • The UN Bites Back

    : If the Bush Administration is serious about UN reform, it should replace Ambassador John Bolton and stop linking payment of dues to action on reform. Subscribe

  • Press Watch

    Bunkum From Benador

    Larry Cohler-Esses : The debunking of a PR agency that circulated a bogus story about persecution of Jews in Iran exposed the moving parts of a media machine bent on preparing the American public for another war.

  • Burning Cole

    Philip Weiss : Politics trumped academic integrity when a neocon network torpedoed the appointment of Mideast scholar and blogger Juan Cole to a faculty position at Yale.

  • Danger in Paradise

    Mindy Pennybacker : It's hard to tell whether the US is conducting a war against terror or against Native Hawaiians, as the military uses parts of the Waianae coast as a live-fire training ground. Subscribe

Reviews

Columns

Web

  • When Soldiers Shoot a War

    Kevin McCarthy : The War Tapes, a documentary shot by US soldiers and sanctioned by the military, may turn out to be the most powerful statement against the war to date.

  • TruthDig

    Hillary's Hypocrisy

    Robert Scheer : Hillary Clinton's dissembling on Iraq has become a fatal embarassment for her presidential ambitions and for anyone who looks to her for leadership.

  • Howl

    Bush's Baghdad Palace

    Nicholas von Hoffman : The United States has made no headway quelling the insurgency or rebuilding Iraq, but one secret project is on target: construction of a palatial US Embassy inside the Green Zone. What kind of exit strategy is this?

  • Southpaw

    Hey Guys, It's Just a Game

    Dave Zirin & John Cox : Soccer's not for wimps, but Team America and its fans have brought a decidedly militarist mindset to the World Cup.

  • Something to Believe In

    Sam Graham-Felsen : What does it take to motivate young people to meaningful political action? This VideoNation report looks at how three protests drew three very different constituencies.

July 3, 2006 Cover Cover design by Peter Ahlberg, photograph by Mic Burns

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