Eric Alterman
Eric Alterman
Eric Altermanis an American historian, journalist, author, media critic, blogger, and educator. He is currently CUNY Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College, the media columnist for The Nation and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, as well as the author of ten books. His weblog named Altercation was originally hosted by MSNBC.com from 2002 until 2006, moved to Media Matters for America until December 2008, and is now hosted by The Nation. He writes...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBlogger
Date of Birth14 January 1960
CountryUnited States of America
More and more, Democrats are starting to worry they that they have a more um, colorful version of Jimmy Carter on their hands. Obama acts cool as a proverbial cucumber but that awful '70s show seems frightfully close to a rerun.
The word liberal has been employed as the political equivalent of an untreatable but potentially containable social disease -- the kind that could be contracted merely by going to a foreign movie or ordering a decaf latte, or worse, a glass of French wine.
Obama, like Carter, is reacting to warning signs by seeking to split the difference between dispirited Democrats and increasingly radicalized Republicans.
But particularly when the media profess to strive toward objectivity, gatekeepers play a crucial role in helping people navigate the news to make educated political decisions.
Ironically, tendency to ignore inconvenient facts and unwelcome evidence is actually President Reagan's true legacy, as I noted in 'The Nation' back in 2000, before the current right-wing mania for President Reagan gained its full force.
The war on terrorism was a bait and switch operation.
To become informed and hold government accountable, the general public needs to obtain news that is comprehensive yet interesting and understandable, that conveys facts and outcomes, not cosmetic images and airy promises. But that is not what the public demands.
Much of what Tea Party candidates claimed about the world and the global economy during the 2010 elections would have earned their adherents a well-deserved F in any freshman economics (or earth science) class.
Philosophers and theologians have argued for centuries over the morality of targeted assassinations - a technique that the Israelis use with some frequency - without ever reaching anything approaching consensus.
Veteran print editors and reporters at places like the 'Times' and 'The New Yorker' manage to feed and clothe their families without costing their companies a million bucks a month, and they produce a great deal more valuable reporting and analysis than the network news stars do.
Fox News is nothing if not impressive. No matter how harsh the criticism it endures, the network somehow always manages to prove itself even worse than we had previously imagined.