General News

Irving Bernstein's two volumes The Lean Years and The Turbulent Years explore the hidden history of U.S. workers' struggles in the 1920s and '30s.

In case you thought the WikiLeaks story might change everything: The forthcoming Time magazine (out tomorrow) has a cover photo of a disfigured Afghan girl with the headline "What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan."

The implication would seem to be that the Taliban will commit similar atrocities without the presence of U.S. forces. You can see the cover (and a portion of the story) here.

Something tells me that no one at a the magazine's editorial meeting suggested a "What Happens if We Stay in Afghanistan" cover headline, which would have been accompanied by a photo of the corpse of an Afghan child killed in an airstrike or a house raid.

Time magazine editor Rick Stengel explains the cover decision in some detail, writing that the cover subject "posed for the picture and says she wants the world to see the effect a Taliban resurgence would have on the women of Afghanistan, many of whom have flourished in the past few years." The accompanying story, writes Stengel, addresses "how Afghan women have embraced the freedoms that have come from the defeat of the Taliban."

Stengel voices his concern about the effect the cover might have on children, but decides in the end that

bad things do happen to people, and it is part of our job to confront and explain them. In the end, I felt that the image is a window into the reality of what is happening--and what can happen--in a war that affects and involves all of us. I would rather confront readers with the Taliban's treatment of women than ignore it. I would rather people know that reality as they make up their minds about what the U.S. and its allies should do in Afghanistan.

Of course, what Time is depicting is only part of "the reality of what is happening" in Afghanistan.

Stengel notes that the "much publicized release of classified documents by WikiLeaks has already ratcheted up the debate about the war," and that Time is  trying "to contribute to that debate. We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it."

He writes:

As lawmakers and citizens begin to sort through the information about the war and make up their minds, our job is to provide context and perspective on one of the most difficult foreign policy issues of our time. What you see in these pictures and our story is something that you cannot find in those 91,000 documents: a combination of emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land and the consequences of the important decisions that lie ahead.

The idea that the way to respond to the WikiLeaks documents is to highlight atrocities by the Taliban is precisely what CBS correspondent Lara Logan called for. It's also propaganda.

When ABC announced that CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour would take over as host of their Sunday chat show This Week, there were rumblings about how different things would be. Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales wrote a nasty hit piece on Amanpour in which he worried that the show focuses on "inside-the-Beltway palaver, an area where Amanpour is widely considered to be deficient." He seemed to mean that was a bad thing. ABC president David Westin, meanwhile, wrote in a memo to ABC staffers, "With Christiane we have the opportunity to provide our audiences with something different on Sunday mornings."

Something different, something not so Beltway-oriented. Sounds good.

Oh, the show starts this weekend. And they've announced the guests: Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Not exactly strangers to inside-the-Beltway palaver.

Well, will the pundit roundtable change, then? Not according to this recent interview with Amanpour (TVNewser, 3/18/10), where she calls George Will a "national treasure."

Fox News continued its domination of cable news ratings in July. The network averaged 1.85 million viewers in primetime for the month--more than CNN, MSNBC and HLN combined.

Lately, consumers have been ending up on the winning side of many decisions regarding the future of wireless communications in the U.S. And judging from the industry's response, it is not happy about it.

Meredith Corp. has reported fiscal 2010 fourth quarter revenue for its Local Media Group of $77 million, up 23 percent from the prior year.

13 members of Congress have written a "dear colleague" letter to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski asking him to open a rulemaking on retransmission consent reform.

The United Nations General Assembly has declared for the first time that access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right. In a historic vote Wednesday, 122 countries supported the resolution, and over forty countries abstained from voting, including the United States, Canada and several European and other industrialized countries. There were no votes against the resolution. We speak with longtime water justice activist, Maude Barlow. [includes rush transcript]

In Iraq, an official audit by the US Special Investigator for Iraq Reconstruction found that the Pentagon cannot account for almost $9 billion taken from Iraqi oil revenues between 2004 and 2007 for use in reconstruction. Meanwhile, a new medical study has found dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004. We speak with Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for the London Independent. [includes rush transcript]

In the 12 months since its inception, the FCC's new-media team has been attempting to present all FCC projects in an accessible, easy-to-digest way. Tweets, podcasts, blogs and crowd-sourcing platforms have been integral to the team’s communications efforts.

A federal judge in Phoenix blocked key provisions of Arizona’s notorious anti-immigrant law on Wednesday, hours before it was scheduled to take effect. US District Judge Susan Bolton ruled a partial injunction would apply to the portion of the law that requires police officers to stop and interrogate anyone they suspect is an undocumented immigrant. The law sparked mass protests across the country and a boycott of Arizona. We speak with Isabel Garcia, co-chair of the Tucson-based Coalition for Human Rights. [includes rush transcript]

• Federal Judge Blocks Part of Arizona Immigration Law
• US Seeks Access to More Internet Data Without Court Order
• House Reduction of Drug Sentencing Disparity
• EPA Blasted over Handling of Michigan Oil Spill
• Coast Guard's Role in Fighting BP Oil Rig Fire Scrutinized
• Texas Launches Probe of Toxic Release of BP Refinery in Texas City
• Local Afghan Media Outlets Paid to Run US Propaganda
• Pakistan Declares Day of Mourning After Plane Crash
• 2000-2009 Marked Warmest Decade on Record
• Israel Refuses to Pay Medical Bills for Emily Henochowicz
• Peace Activist Art Gish, 70, Dies
• Israel Demolishes Bedouin Village in Negev Desert

By the time the U.S. Postal Service announced plans to raise rates earlier this month, an unusual alliance of customers was in place to oppose it. The Affordable Mail Alliance includes more than 700 publishers, direct-mail companies, nonprofit groups and other mailers that fear the economic impact of proposed increases.

Despite having the first African-American in the White House, African-Americans as a group did not draw much attention from the mainstream press, according to a new study.

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), former head of the Commerce & Energy Committee, said that the chairman of the FCC should drop his push to re-regulate broadband lines.

The Obama administration is seeking to make it easier for the FBI to compel companies to turn over records of an individual's Internet activity without a court order if agents deem the information relevant to a terrorism or intelligence investigation.