"Our 24/7 media cycle is dominated by opinionated news pundits and an
onslaught of celebrity or person-of-the-moment headlines. Do we create
a false reality from false information? How do our reactions impact our
lives – personally and collectively – from politics to war to the
economy to our planet’s very survival?
Not afraid to challenge media
spin with their own brand of truth-telling, Peter and Norman share
their wisdom on how to best navigate through all the noise."
A 25 minute interview with Norman Solomon by Detroit radio host Peter Werbe aired on November 16th.
An MP3 of the show is online you can download or listen to online.
The interview is towards the end two hours and ten minutes into the show after the hour and 45 minute call-in portion of the show and an interview with Robert Kuttner.
When I picked up a ringing phone Monday morning, the next thing I knew a producer was inviting me to appear on Glenn Beck's TV show.
Beck has become a national phenom with his nightly hour of polemics on CNN Headline News -- urging war on Iran, denouncing "political correctness" at home, trashing immigrants who don't speak English, mocking environmentalists as repressive zealots, and generally trying to denigrate progressive outlooks.
Our segment, the producer said, would focus on a recent NBC news report praising the virtues of energy-efficient LED light bulbs without acknowledging that the network's parent company, General Electric, sells them. I figured it was a safe bet that Beck's enthusiasm for full disclosure from media would be selective...
Buying the War, the 90 minute special debut of Bill Moyers Journal, examined media coverage of the Iraq War. Norman Solomon was interviewed in the program. A transcript and video of the entire program are online.
.
BILL MOYERS: It had now become unfashionable to dissent from the official line — Unfashionable and risky.
BILL O'REILLY: (Fox 2/26/03) Anyone who hurts this country in a time like this. Well let's just say you will be spotlighted
NORM SOLOMON: If you're a journalist or a politician,
and you're swimming upstream-- so to speak-- you're gonna encounter a
lot of piranha, and they are voracious. There's a notion that this is
the person that we go after this week.
ERIC BOEHLERT: Fox news and-- and talk radio and the
Conservative bloggers. I mean, they were bangin' those drums very loud.
And-- and, everyone in the press could hear it. -- not only was it just
liberal bias, it was an anti-American bias, an unpatriotic bias and
that these journalists were really not part of America.
DAN RATHER: And every journalist knew it. They had and
they have a very effective slam machine. The way it works is you either
report the news the way we want it reported or we're going to hang a
sign around your neck.
BILL O'REILLY (2/27/03): I will call those who publicly criticize their country in a time of military crisis, which this is, bad Americans.
Last month, I had the pleasure of chatting with media critic Norman
Solomon at the Pine Cone Diner near his home in Point Reyes Station. We
exchanged pleasantries about how lucky we are to be living in the
ecologically buxom North Bay. Then we got down to discussing the matter
at hand: exactly how our federal government uses public-relations
techniques to sell state-sanctioned murder and war-for-profit to the
American people decade after decade after decade...
Read the full article by Peter Byrne from the North Bay Bohemian (April 11-17, 2007).
Norman Solomon received the Annual Ruben Salazar Journalism Award for 2007. The award "honors the memory of independent journalist Ruben Salazar, who was killed during a Vietnam War protest in East Los Angeles when he was hit in the head by a police tear gas canister. Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and cohost Juan Gonzalez are previous award winners."
