| Washington Post Spreads Clinton's Angry Dose of 'Hey Diddle Diddle'
Washington Post reporter Peter Baker penned a story on Bill Clinton for Friday's front page. The Post website summarized: "Former president promotes wife's candidacy while trying to set the record straight on his own tenure." Set the record straight? That's what Baker wrote in his article: "As Clinton travels the country campaigning for his wife with characteristic intensity, he is fighting not only to promote Hillary Rodham Clinton's candidacy but also set the record straight on the two terms he spent in the White House." Does Clinton have the credibility to "set the record straight" when he has a long record of public lying, even lying in court? Baker's front-pager promoted Clinton's long-standing pique with independent counsel Ken Starr: "Ken Starr spent $70 million and indicted innocent people to find out that I wouldn't take a nickel to see the cow jump over the moon," he told the students last week, his eyes narrowing and his finger jabbing the air.
Both Sides Cite Science to Address Altered Corn
But if the impacts are so small, as they apparently are, we should then ask what are the impacts of spraying corn with conventional insecticides. Does that kill any butterflies? Produce any runoff into streams? How do we compare a biodegradable, highly specific protein toxin with persistent, broadly toxic petrochemicals? By any rational measure, it appears that Bt corn is a Green technology, in that its use lowers environmental burdens and petroleum use as compared with previous methods. But the broader point is not about Bt corn, Bt toxin and whether there might be some harm caused by SOME genetic modifications. There are also harms caused by chemical pesticides, natural toxins in foods that we eat, and by agriculture itself. These should all be assessed and weighed in relation to their actual significance.
Editorial: Public expects Acme probe to be complete, transparent
Grand Traverse County Prosecutor Alan Schneider last week did what he absolutely had to do to preserve his own and his department's professional credibility. After being urged to action by Acme officials, Schneider asked the Michigan State Police to investigate whether Meijer, Inc. used corporate funds to influence a failed Acme Township recall election last February. He also made a declaration that, given the pathetic state of politics in Michigan and Meijer's considerable clout, was mandatory: "The investigation will take its own course," he promised. "Wherever the case leads, the investigator will follow those facts." We can only hope that Schneider, and the MSP, are as good as their word. There is much at stake here, and an aggressive investigation into what people knew and when they knew it -- and who called the shots -- is absolutely necessary to regain the public trust.
Naked Launch: Fox News Architect Dan Cooper Tells All
Rupert Murdoch hired Roger Ailes to brainwash America into thinking right-wing ideology is actually the political center. And he did. And, I'm ashamed to tell you, I helped him. I made a lot of money that year: 1996. I owned and loved living in an elegant cooperative apartment building on Park Avenue in Manhattan, just a few blocks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim. The hallways were floored with inlaid marble. You placed your garbage in custom designed mahogany chests outside your front door. The doormen called me mister. I was a Democrat. Meaning I was so important to right-wing News Corporation that I was given a piece of what they called "the heavy lifting" on a project of extraordinary importance to Rupert Murdoch — a key role in conceiving and building out the Fox News Channel.
Reviving the J-School
For as long as doomsayers have predicted the decline of civic-minded reportage as we know it, reformers have sought to draft a rewrite of the institutions that train many undergraduate and graduate students pursuing a career in journalism. Criticisms of journalism schools have ranged from questioning whether the institutions are necessary in the first place (since many journalists, and most senior ones, don’t have journalism degrees) to debating the merits of teaching practical skills versus theory and whether curriculums should emphasize broad knowledge or specialization in individual fields. All of those issues, and others, came to light on Wednesday at a meeting of journalism school deans, editors and news executives struggling with the perennial questions of what aspiring journalists should learn, how they should be taught and how schools should adapt to the fast-evolving and ever-fragmenting media landscape.
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