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 Writers' Resources
Public Interest in News Topics Beyond Control of Mainstream Media
 Kenneth F. Bunting
The blogosphere has been abuzz. But in the days since Rolling Stone magazine published a long piece that accused Republicans of widespread and intentional cheating that affected the outcome of the last presidential election, the silence in America's establishment media has been deafening.more »»»
Media Crimes Sanitize War Crimes in Iraq
 Danny Schechter
As events in Iraq continue to slip from bad to worse, the good news brigade is scrambling for new stories ("anything, give me anything") to shore up what's left of public support for a bloody war without end.more »»»
Media Memorial Day
 Norman Solomon
People who are concerned about the state of the US news media in 2006 might pause to consider those who have lost their lives in the midst of journalistic neglect, avoidance and bias. We remember that while TV and radio news reports tell the latest about corporate fortunes, vast numbers of real people are struggling to make ends meet.more »»»
The War on Free Press
 Derrick Z. Jackson
Journalists. Get the rack ready! Our attorney general is coming for us, snarling like a guard dog at Abu Ghraib. On Sunday, Alberto Gonzales told ABC's "This Week" that he would consider prosecuting reporters who get their hands on classified information and break news about President Bush's terrorist surveillance program.more »»»
Why We Published the AT&T Docs
 Evan Hansen
A file detailing aspects of AT&T's alleged participation in the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic wiretap operation is sitting in a San Francisco courthouse. But the public cannot see it because, at AT&T's insistence, it remains under seal in court records.more »»»
The New York Times Cover-Up Continues
 Carl Pope
It's been four and a half years since the attack on New York City's World Trade Center. The death toll continues to rise. But now those who die are victims of their own government's recklessness and dishonesty - not Al Qaeda's hatred.more »»»
FBI Acknowledges: Journalists' Phone Records Are Fair Game
 Brian Ross & Richard Esposito
The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters' phone records in leak investigations. "It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration," said a senior federal official.more »»»
Scared of Scoops
 Geoffrey R. Stone
While tensions between the federal government and the press are as old as the Republic itself, presidential administrations have never been inclined to criminally prosecute the news media for publishing information they would rather keep secret.more »»»
Freedom of the Press Deteriorates in the World and in Europe
 Laurence Girard
The year 2005 will remain the deadliest in ten years for journalists. The account published Wednesday, May 3, by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on the occasion of the sixteenth annual International Press Freedom Day, hardly makes one optimistic.more »»»
The Fox News Effect
 Richard Morin
We report. You decide. Does President Bush owe his controversial win in 2000 to Fox cable television news? Yes, suggest data collected by two economists who found that the growth of the Fox cable news network in the late 1990s may have significantly boosted the Republican Party's share of the vote in the 2000 election.more »»»
US Media Outlets Weigh Importance of Mexican Drug Legalization Story
 CBSNews
It's hard to come across this headline and not be a little taken aback: "Mexico To Legalize Cocaine, Heroin Use." That's right – according to yesterday's stories, "Mexican President Vicente Fox will sign into law a measure that decriminalizes the possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs for personal use."more »»»
Colbert Lampoons Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner - President Not Amused?
 Editor and Publisher
A blistering comedy "tribute" to President Bush by Comedy Central's faux talk show host Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner Saturday night left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close. Earlier, the president had delivered his talk to the 2700 attendees with the help of a Bush impersonator.more »»»
Experts Agree Press has more Freedom
 Kelly Arthur Garrett
Media experts agreed Thursday that the Mexican press has evolved along with Mexican democracy to the point that its role in the current electoral campaign bears little resemblance to its unabashed pro-government cheerleading of just two decades ago.more »»»
Lou Dobbs: Self Interested Demagoguery
 Tim Rutten
His shtick is to take a page from Fox's playbook and retool the talk-radio sensibility for the tube. No real reporting, just lots of opinion aggressively presented with a recurring focus on the requisite obsession — in his case, illegal immigration.more »»»
Fox News Hannity & Colmes BOTH afraid to discuss Bohemian Grove
 John Conner
Call in and ask either Sean Hannity or Alan Colmes at Fox News during their radio shows about the Bohemian Grove and you're likely to get hung up on, yelled at, or personally attacked.more »»»
Panic in the Newspaper Biz
 Molly Ivins
I don't so much mind that newspapers are dying - it's watching them commit suicide that pisses me off. Let's use this as a handy exercise in journalism. What is the unexamined assumption here? That the newspaper business is dying. Is it? In 2005, publicly traded US newspaper publishers reported operating profit margins of 19.2%, down from 21% in 2004. That ain't chopped liver.more »»»
Iraq: US News Media's Waterloo
 Robert Parry
For more than three decades, the U.S. news media has been living off - or living down, depending on your perspective - its Watergate-era reputation of helping to unseat a power-abusing President and exposing a raft of other political scandals.more »»»
Editorial Writers: The Silence of the Sheep
 William Fisher
We may or may not agree with the president and his people, but at least they have an opinion. Sadly, the same can't be said of the editorial writers for America's most influential mainstream media.more »»»
This Essay Breaks the Law
 Michael Crichton
• Elevated homocysteine is linked to heart disease.
• Elevated homocysteine is linked to B-12 deficiency, so doctors should test homocysteine levels to see whether the patient needs vitamins.
Actually, I can't make that last statement. A corporation has patented that fact, and demands a royalty for its use.more »»»
More News Outlets, Fewer Stories: New Media 'Paradox'
 James Rainey
A "new paradox of journalism" has emerged in which the number of news outlets continues to grow, yet the number of stories covered and the depth of many reports is decreasing, according to an annual review of the news business being released today by a watchdog group.more »»»
Lap Dogs of the Press
 Helen Thomas
Of all the unhappy trends I have witnessed - conservative swings on television networks, dwindling newspaper circulation, the jailing of reporters and "spin" - nothing is more troubling to me than the obsequious press during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.more »»»
Mexican Journalists Warn of Wave of Libel Suits Against Them
 Associated Press
Mexican journalists have signed a declaration to protest what they call a “wave of lawsuits for libel” that they say are being used to intimidate and silence reporters, a Mexican watchdog group said Tuesday.more »»»
Domestic Lying: The Question Journalists Don't Ask Bush
 Norman Solomon
With great fanfare the other day, Oprah Winfrey asked James Frey a question that mainstream journalists refuse to ask George W. Bush: "Why would you lie?"more »»»
A Tip for the Cowardly Press Corps
 Joe Conason
Scott "Stonewall" McClellan arrogantly insists on "specific" questions about Abramoff's ties to the White House. OK, here's one: Did Bush meet with the lobbyist on May 9, 2001?more »»»
How to Have a Well-Balanced News Diet
 Carolina Cositore
Twenty-five years ago, writing about the US media, Noam Chomsky noted that a well-functioning propaganda system presents a picture of the world that has only the remotest relation to reality.more »»»
Media's War Images Delude Instead of Inform
 Norman Solomon
The picture was perfect. It provided a moving portrait, an image that journalists called "iconic." It was true to the moment. Yet the photograph was deceiving in a way that media images often are - showing us what's more apparent than real.more »»»
Newspapers Urge President to Quit
 Greg Mitchell
It amazes me when people make fun of the very notion that a president under a dark cloud might be asked to leave office, or given a push, in light of the very recent experience involving one William Clinton.more »»»
Media New Year's Resolutions for 2006
 Norman Solomon
No one is in greater need of forthright new year's resolutions than big media outlets. In a constructive spirit, therefore, here are some resolutions for them in 2006.more »»»
The P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2005
 Norman Solomon
More than a dozen years ago, I joined with Jeff Cohen (founder of the media watch group FAIR) to establish the P.U.-litzer Prizes. Ever since then, the annual awards have given recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year.more »»»
Mexico: Journalist Detained and Charged with Defamation
 Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly protests the detention on Friday of Mexican journalist and human rights activist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro. She was released on bail on Saturday and faces criminal defamation charges.more »»»
Hidden in Plane Sight: US Media Dodging Air War in Iraq
 Norman Solomon
Major US news outlets are dodging the extent of the Pentagon's bombardment from the air, an avoidance all the more egregious because any drawdown of US troop levels in Iraq is very likely to be accompanied by a step-up of the air war.more »»»
Journalists Who Won't Give Up
 Howard Kurtz
Investigative reporters are, by their nature, dogged, tenacious and deeply suspicious, crashing through official roadblocks as they chase the most elusive stories. Some of them continue that quest long after their support evaporates, their evidence crumbles and even their employers abandon them.more »»»
Woodward Joins a Decadent Dance
 Tim Rutten
Whatever impact the scandal surrounding the leak of former CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity ultimately has on the Bush administration, it continues to spread through the Washington press corps like a toxic plume.more »»»
The End of News?
 Michael Massing
The Bush administration has restricted access to public documents as no other before it. According to a recent report on government secrecy by OpenTheGovernment.org, a watchdog organization, the federal government classified a record 15.6 million new documents in fiscal year 2004, an increase of 81 percent.more »»»
International Group Says Mexico Is Latin America's 'Deadliest' Country For Journalists In 2005
 AP
Mexico became Latin America's most dangerous country in which to be a journalist in 2005, the international watchdog group Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday.more »»»
After the Libby Indictment, the Press Is Acquitting Itself
 Norman Solomon
A lot of media outlets are now scrutinizing some of the lies told by the Bush administration before the invasion of Iraq. Yet the same news organizations are bypassing their own key roles in the marketing of those lies. A case in point is the New York Times.more »»»
At 2,000, Iraq's Military Deaths Got the Media's Full Attention
 Katharine Q. Seelye
Papers that had dutifully acknowledged the first 1,000 dead seemed to give greater emotional weight to the loss of the second 1,000, while single columns gave way to feature layouts.more »»»
New York Times's Misguided Crusade
 Robert Scheer
Media corporations are arguably the most important yet least examined centers of power in our society. The owners of the 4th Estate have a unique ability to direct the searchlight of inquiry upon others while remaining powerfully positioned to deflect it from themselves.more »»»
Lennon-Ono Photo Deemed Top Magazine Cover
 Deepti Hajela
On what would be the last day of his life, John Lennon posed for photographs with Yoko Ono in a session with photographer Annie Liebovitz. One of the pictures, a naked Lennon curled around and kissing a clothed Ono, became the cover for Rolling Stone magazine's tribute to him.more »»»
Disappearing Anti-War Protests
 FAIR
If you relied on television for your news, you'd hardly know the protests happened at all. According to the Nexis news database, the only mention on the network newscasts that Saturday came on the NBC Nightly News, where the massive march received all of 87 words.more »»»
Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy
 Susannah Rosenblatt & James Rainey
Maj. Ed Bush recalled how he stood in the bed of a pickup truck in the days after Hurricane Katrina, struggling to help the crowd outside the Louisiana Superdome separate fact from fiction. Armed only with a megaphone and scant information, he might have been shouting into, well, a hurricane.more »»»
The News Media and the Anti-War Movement
 Norman Solomon
Even without dramatic natural disasters, the news media are ready, willing and able to downplay news about war - and the antiwar movement - for any number of reasons. Conventional wisdom on Capitol Hill or in newsrooms can tamp down media coverage of a surging movement.more »»»
Happy Media Accountability Day!
 Molly Ivins
What we need in this country - along with a disaster relief agency - is a Media Accountability Day. One precious day out of the entire year when everyone in the news media stops reporting on what's wrong with everyone else and devotes a complete 24-hour news cycle to looking at our own failures. How's that for a great idea?more »»»
Almost Before We Spoke, We Swore
 Natalie Angier
Cursing is a human universal. Every language, dialect or patois ever studied, living or dead, spoken by millions or by a small tribe, turns out to have its share of forbidden speech, some variant on comedian George Carlin's famous list of the seven dirty words that are not supposed to be uttered on radio or television.more »»»
They Shoot News Anchors, Don't They?
 Nikki Finke
The real test of pathos vs. profit is still before us: whether the TV newscasters will spend the fresh reservoir of trust earned with the public to not only rattle Bush's cage but also battle their own bosses.more »»»
What We Talk About When We Talk About Editing
 David Shipley
Just like Times news articles and editorials, Op-Ed essays are edited. Before something appears in our pages, you can bet that questions have been asked, arguments have been clarified, cuts have been suggested - as have additions - and factual, typographical and grammatical errors have been caught. (We hope.)more »»»
Carburetor Breast Fantasy Wins Bad Writing Contest
 Reuters
"As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold..."more »»»
Focusing on Travel Photography
 Rick Steves
Smile! As technology improves and prices get cheaper, digital cameras have become a great option for travelers. Personally, I haven’t taken a film camera to Europe in years.more »»»
Mexican Newspaper Editor gets Daniel Pearl Journalism Award in LA
 Associated Press
Sixty-eight-year-old Jesus Blancornela was honored for his work in the weekly Zeta, which has investigated government corruption and drug cartels, and whose editors have repeatedly been the targets of assassination attempts.more »»»
'Vocabularians' Submit Top Unlisted Words
 Associated Press
The editors of Merriam-Webster dictionaries got more than 3,000 entries when, in a lighthearted moment, they asked visitors to their Web site to submit their favorite words that aren't in the dictionary.more »»»
The Truth About Travel Writing
 Lan Sluder
You're on a beach in the South Pacific. The water of the lagoon, ridiculously transparent, looks like the cover of Condé Nast Traveler. After dinner under the stars you'll type up your day's notes. If this isn't paradise, it's as close as you or Jimmy Buffett will ever get.more »»»
Subject: Word Play
 The Washington Post
Here's something for you literary types: The Washington Post's Style Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners.more »»»
Get Photos!
 Baba Deco
Travel is always an adventure, and photographs bring it to life. Have you ever seen a travel article without photos, or at least some drawings? Photos are the essence of travel writing, and the first question when you submit a story is "Where can I get photographs?"more »»»
10 Tips for Selling Your Travel Writing
 Lan Sluder
Tip Number 1 - Get to know travel editors and schmooze public relations people in the hospitality industry. While good writing sells stories, people who know and like you make the plum assignments.more »»»
Writers' Resources
 Baba Deco
So you want be a writer, but you don't know where to start? The Internet is a place of vast resources for writers, and BanderasNews has put together a list of informative websites to give those of us who like to write a "leg up."more »»»
Writers' Organizations
 On the Net
For those interested in the craft of journalistic, online, technical or creative writing, here's a list of many of the writer's organizations around the world that offer guidance and support for novice, freelance and professional writers.more »»»
Research & Reference Materials
 On the Net
The right piece of information, historical fact, word or turn of phrase can transform your writing efforts into a literary masterpiece. You'll find links to Grammar and Style Resources, Dictionaries, Thesauruses, and other reference materials here.more »»»
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