-
Interview technique…
Clip from a phone interview with NewsHour legend Jim Lehrer where he recounts a recurring nightmare in which he is interviewing a prominent politician: Lehrer: “Senator, should we send grain to Cuba?”Senator: “Yes, but first we should bomb Havana.”Lehrer: “What kind of grain?” Very nice…
-
Reporting Iraq
There is an information war going on in the Middle East, besides the real, bloody one. It is conducted through media monitoring and also through bloggers interested in discrediting the few media organizations conducting independent journalism there. Occasionally it rears its ugly head, and occasionally it claims a scalp – justifiably in the case of…
-
Bashir un-bashed
News emerges, via veteran U.S. TV writer Tom Shales, of Martin Bashir. In case you’d forgotten, he’s on the post-Ted Koppel Nightline, which airs on ABC (imagine the post-Jon Snow Channel 4 News). Shales notes that: Nightline has survived its initial case of post-Koppel stress disorder and emerged a solid, ambitious news broadcast, one that…
-
Fake news
The fake news debate has been given a new twist in China. The Shanghai Daily is reporting on bogus journos who apparently threaten to expose corruption unless paid to stay silent: In less than 100 days, from early August to November 9, an anti-fake-reporter campaign in an otherwise little known city in coal-rich Shanxi Province…