PressEthic

The PBS show Moyers on America aired a special called The Net @ Risk tonight. The show addresses net neutrality, the accessibility of various parts of the internet without regard to its content. With the increasing sophistication of internet content, such as the use of audio and video features, the companies that supply our internet access are seeking to create different classes of websites. Under such a system, the websites that carry certain types of bandwidth occupying content would be charged by internet service providers in exchange for continuing to relay their premium content.

A segment on NPR's weekly media criticism show, On The Media, addressed a huge topic, an elephant in the room that should be discussed extensively both in the public and within press circles. Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, interviewed two reporters from McClatchy Newspapers, John Walcott and Warren Strobel about reporting on the runup to war in Iraq and a possible war in Iran.

Conflicts of interest in journalism have been the topic of much debate inside the media lately. Most notably, the ever-evolving situation at the Miami Herald highlighted the reprecussions of journalists from ostensibly neutral sources working for organizations with a clear opinion or platform.

Reuters reports for Wired that more people are getting information from the websites of newspapers, while the print readership is declining.

The government is paying universities to develop software that will “identify common patterns from numerous sources of information which might be indicative of potential threats to the nation,” by combing foreign newspapers for their coverage of the U.S.

The recently declassified National Intelligence Estimate summary contains plenty of information contradicting what the public hears from the Bush administration.

Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai held a press conference with President George W. Bush yesterday at the White House. During the question and answer session, President Bush defended the war in Iraq, and President Karzai backed him up. Karzai conjures up American post-September 11 rage with an impassioned ire in his voice that print is unlikely to convey accurately. However, it would have been nice if someone had tried.

A Salon news piece documents another incidence of the Bush administration using government officials as agents of its public agenda. In this case, scientists for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Hurricane Center (NHC) were subjected to message control efforts by the White House. Two White House agencies, the Council on Environmental Quality and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, have actively restricted what scientists at NOAA and NHC are permitted to say to reporters about the link between global climate change and stronger storms.

There's a telling detail in a 2003 piece in the Columbia Journalism Review about the state of objectivity in the modern press.

If you're trying to get an idea of where the Senate Judiciary Committee stands on the issue of wiretapping, you can look to either the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, or the Washington Post. Just don't try to compare all three.

Today, AM New York included a piece in their "five years later" coverage on a NY1/Newsday poll about New Yorkers' thoughts about possible further attacks. The story leads with this alarming statment:

Most New Yorkers expect another city terrorist attack in the next five years and a majority favor some form of profiling of Muslims or Middle Easterners....