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
We sometimes find ourselves at a loss as to whether we should be more appalled at the Bush Administration's ideological obsession, its incompetence, its arrogance, its anti-intellectualism, or its dishonesty, ... In New Orleans, we see all of these forces at work in a manner that the mainstream media finally finds itself unable to ignore.
The myth of the liberal media empowers conservatives to control debate in the United States to the point where liberals cannot even hope for a fair shake anymore.
The White House and the media need one another in order to be successful in their jobs. The White House depends on the media to make its case to the public; the media need the White House to fill their airtime and news columns.
We live in a media world simultaneously obsessed with technology and personality.
Liberals believe that they can't get a fair shake from the media anymore.
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.
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.
Most of the provisions designed to fix what ails our health system don't kick in until 2014, which, one wishes administration officials had noticed, is two years after he has to win an election.
I am deeply devoted to the 27,000 songs I can take anywhere on my iPod Classic as well as the exquisitely engineered MacBook Air on which I typed this column.
Politically, Obama's amazing streak of self-destructing opponents who have lain beneath his feet during his unlikely political career appears to be holding.
Newspaper companies are losing advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable just four years ago.
never let my right hand know what my left hand does.
It's not merely that conservatives are better at selling their product, or that they happen to have an easier-and undoubtedly simpler-ideological product to sell. It's that they know what they are selling. Liberals in general and Obama in particular cannot say the same.
Whether people care enough about local news to pay for it is, sadly, an entirely different question than whether our democracy requires a strong watchdog function at the local level to ensure safeguards against abuse, chicanery, and outright dishonesty.