Examines media obsessions as well as off-limit topics in news reporting. The episode takes a closer look at the influences of the Pro-Israel lobby on US press coverage and follows a media consultant who brokers stories of abducted children into mainstream news.
The episode follows Iraqi photo-journalist Ben Lawi as he captures the US-Iraqi conflict, the people of Iraq, and reconstruction. It also examines the Bush administrations propaganda efforts which helped to sell the war to America through the assistance of the media. Featured interview with Valerie Plame.
Features an experiment by a neuroscientist that looks at the psychological effects of screaming, pundit-driven news. After exploring a story about big pharmaceutical companies, a closer look is taken on how overwhelming and paralyzing the news can be. Featured interview with Dan Rather.
The episode first critiques media and press coverage of the economic crisis. Features a story about the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and how New York's three major daily papers failed to cover it critically. Featured interview with The Yes Men.
The episode follows Carmen, a reporter for the Latin El Diario La Prensa, as she crosses the country on a Greyhound bus searching for Latin stories. Features a breakdown of how the media covers the same old story about the war on drugs, and how it's perpetuated by the US Government and unquestioned by the mainstream media.
Features a stunt that predicts an idyllic Utopian press, then muses about the future of news and how journalism must adapt to ubiquitous media. Features an interview with Arianna Huffington.
The episode takes a look at how the US is portrayed in the world media, and how it's often misrepresented. Featured segment investigates why English Al-Jazeera is unavailable in most of the US. Featured interview with the creator of "BCC World News America" Rome Hartman.
The episode explores journalistic ethics and when it is or isn't okay to "cross the line" in pursuit of a story. Featured is the story of Muntadhar al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw a shoe at President Bush during a press conference. Featured interview with columnist Randy Cohen.
The episode covers a variety of topics, including questioning the media's agendas in political and business news coverage, the debate over clean coal and how two competing publicity campaigns obfuscate the issue, as well as a look at why we will continue to need coal for years to come. Activist Alex Jones is featured as a "below-the-radar" anti-government media voice.
The episode focuses on the plight of the media in today's current economic state. Case studies compare former media insiders' perspectives as well as show who's hurting and benefiting from the digital shift. A mini-feature piece chronicles the death of the Rocky Mountain News as told from the point of view of its editor and publisher, John Temple.
he episode chronicles four journalists inside the White House Press Corps under Obama's administration, and interweaves a look on how Barack Obama relates to media and how certain elements have affected government transparency in the media through time.
The episode follows Max Blumenthal as he explores the language of fear within the Tea Party Movement and how Fox News Channel and leaders of the Republican Party are using fear to meet their own political ends.
The episode focuses on the media's coverage of the earthquake in Haiti. Following documentary filmmaker and photographer Andrew Berends as well as Dan Rather and CNN, we[who?] see how the media mobilizes and struggles to cover their story in a disaster zone.