Bill Moyers Journal

Okay, i'm a fan. The first two episode of this new PBS series are excellent. The Buying the War episode brings together quite nicely much of the criticism of the American mainstream mass media's complicity with the Bush administration's war on Iraq/terror. Not that the Canadian mass media should be lauded - i wonder what an analysis of the Canadian media would demonstrate in terms of US aggression, (especially given Linda McQuaig's new book Holding the Bully's Coat: Canada and the US Empire)? As much as i've been critical of mass media for the past 27 years, having started out at the McGill Daily in Montreal where we knew with that certainty (both a privilege and flaw of youth) that we could change things, still i was and am amazed at the american mainstream mass media's numerous failures in covering the elections of Bush, the bombing of the World Trade Centre, the "war on terror", the invasion of Iraq and more. Moyers show goes some way to exposing these failures, even if understanding them remains a more complex (and necessary) task than a one-hour TV show can be expected to do. One of the implicit themes of the Buying the War episode is the media's resistance (or inability?) to admit that they were wrong. The show is a good indictment. But, of course, this is only one aspect of addressing the problem. And, ironically, Moyers show itself acts as a kind of (hegemonic) mea culpa showing that however rare it might be, the media yet includes the capacity to be critical of itself, of not apologize.

The second episode includes a very good interview with John Stewart - one that increases, once again, my respect for Stewart. And there's also a good piece about the blog Talking Points Memo.

Their wesbite is impressive as well, with video of the full episodes available as well as transcripts, a blog of their own and a podcast. They're on the ball when it comes to taking advantage of internet capacity.