Journalism and Media Criticism Page
Welcome to my page of Journalism, Media Criticism, and Media Literacy links I've divided it into five sections. You may "jump" from any of the section headings in the Table of Contents (TOC) below directly to the section, without scrolling down the page. At the end of each section there's another "jump" back to the Table of Contents.
- Journalism Criticism
- Alternative Media
- Media Literacy
- Journalism History
- Newpapers and Magazines On-Line
- Media Resources on the Internet
My goal is to help those who want to critically study and analyze the media, and those who want to create alternative media to challenge the falsehoods in the mass media. Please send me your criticisms, and let me know which of these links are useful. Please notify me of any useful links you find as well, and I will add them.
Journalism Criticism: Print, TV, Film
The
Noam Chomsky Archive
Chomsky, the world's most famous theoretical linguist, is also perhaps the most
prominent media critic in the US and one of the leading American "dissidents",
widely published abroad but blacklisted by the mainstream media here.
Also check out the following Chomsky site:
Noam
Chomsky: Political Texts Online
FAIR
-- Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting
The main media criticism organization that is NOT funded by corporate money -- i.e. by the
capitalist forces which own and bias the media in the first place. Lots of interesting
articles, radio broadcast transcripts, analysis of television, radio, and print
journalism.
"Consent,
American Style"
An essay by Steve Mizrach, who summarizes Herman's and Chomsky's approach in Manufacturing
Consent. A good theoretical overview of this approach to media criticism.
"Sun Lies" - Joe
Surkiewicz's fine page on the pro-corporate, right-wing slant of The Baltimore Sun.
Invasion of Panama --
F.A.I.R. Exposes US Press' Role
Lengthy and detailed essay by Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen exposing the US press acting
like propaganda agents for the US government covering up the imperialist invasion of
Panama, 1990.
"The Business
Party Line". George Chacal argues that the media function as propagandists
for employers, and so consistently oppose the interests of the majority of the population,
while hiding the fact under the guise of 'free press' and 'objectivity.'
Iran Embassy Hostages'
Crimes Covered Up by US Media. I wrote this essay in 1979, using materials
freely available in the US, to show how the US hostages' -- mainly CIA agents' -- crimes
had been covered up by the "free" US media, acting as state propaganda agents,
as usual.
Israeli Rule over
Palestinians is Fascist", another essay I wrote for The Montclarion,
this one from 1988, about how the US media cover up Israeli fascist repression against the
Palestinians, calling all Palestinian violence "terrorism," while never
terming the much greater Israeli violence as terrorism.
Alternative Media
These media challenge the pro-business bias of the mass media from different perspectives.
Challenge/Desafio
-- the Progressive Labor Party Home Page
The leading communist -- pro-working class, anti-capitalist, revolutionary -- publication
in the US; it regularly carries articles and editorials with a class analysis that sharply
contrast with the pro-business "mainstream" media. See the world from a
working-class point of view!
Free
Speech TV
A site open to alternative media viewpoints.
New World Media
/ Digital Alternative Media
Includes "The Left Side of the Web" and other links.
Covert
Action Quarterly
Specializes in Foreign Affairs and the Radical Right (including Republican Party and Nazi,
etc. ties). The only publication against which a specific law has ever been passed in the
US! Click on "Contents" for current issues, or "Back Issues" for
others.
MediaFilter
Home Page More links to alternative media.Try PostModern Warfare for exposes of
genocide, militarism, and oppression in the "Free World".
How to read, and not be fooled by, the commercial mass media.
This is a rapidly growing field in the US, with courses, journals, and Web sites appearing frequently. As the US media becomes more and more tightly controlled by a few huge, conservative media organizations, there is more awareness of the need to challenge this monolithic propaganda machine.
Media Literacy On-Line Project Home
Page
Aims to become the main source for WWW information on media education and criticism. Start
your search here!
Media Watchdog
An M.I.T. site for media literacy and criticism of the mainstream media.
Project Censored
The famous center at California's Sonoma State U. which has been compiling, and
publicizing, stories "censored" -- ignored or underreported -- by the mass media
since the mid-70s.
Institute for
Propaganda Analysis Uses propaganda analysis framework developed by the original IPA
in the mid-30s to apply to political discourse in the USA today. Since it's analytical,
it's necessarily critical of both liberal and conservative rhetoric, i.e. lies and
cover-ups for serving corporate interests. Check it out!
AlterNet:
The Institute for Alternative Journalism
Gathers non- and anti-"mainstream" journalism sites. Check out their list of related journalism sites here.
You can't really understand the American media without knowing a lot about the history of the media in the US. I teach "History of Journalism in America", and this was the first thing I learned when I began to prepare this course in 1980 -- that I knew nothing about the media, because I knew nothing about its history. It's horrifying and fascinating -- and very important for everyone, not just for aspiring journalists.
The Media History Project,
out of the University of Colorado.
The largest "meta-index" of media history information. Click here for the page
specific to print journalism history;
... and here for the
page specific to television journalism history.
Internet Resources on Journalism History
LISTSERVERS (also called Mailing Lists)
- Journalism History list (JHIST):click here to email to listserv@acfcluster.nyu.edu: no subject line; one-line message SUBSCRIBE JHISTORY
- Journalism Educators' list (JOURNET):click here to email to listserv@qucdn.queensu.ca: no subject line; one-line message SUBSCRIBE JOURNET
Newspapers and Magazines On-Line
On-Line Newspapers.
The most definitive list I have found of newspapers available on-line.
Yahoo's List of Magazines On-Line.
Again, the most complete list I have.
The New York
Times On-Line. Free to US readers, for the time being. You have to register,
then you can clip away!
BUT -- always check out the alternative media when reading the "mainstream" media. Their conservative, pro-business, anti-employee bias inevitably imparts a conservative bias, clear even in the press the right-wingers call "liberal."
Media Resources on the Internet
Professional and Student
Journalism Organizations, collected by the San Francisco State University Journalism
Department.
Lots more sites here!
Worldwide Academic Communications,
Journalism and Media Sites
A good international collection, organized geographically, from Univ. of Florida.
WWW
Virtual Library: Journalism
Journalism and j-education links in nine categories; a very useful and probably complete
collection!
Journalism
Links (Hong Kong)
A good collection of (mainly US) journalism links in English!
Yahoo's Index of Journalism on the
Web Links to investigative and just plain reporting, and other professional and
student journalism sites. Also check out their more general index here.
WebOvision: Links to Media
Sites Lots of media sites, including Television and World Media
locations.
These are just a few of the journalism sites I have found useful and interesting. Let me know of any others you come across, and I'll put them on!
PLEASE! Contact me with your suggestions by clicking here
http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/media.html | furrg@alpha.montclair.edu | last modified 1 Jan 99