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GRITtv: The F Word: "Serious" Discussion of Afghanistan
The media watch group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting has run the numbers, and the Washington Post's the worst offender. Ten times as many pro-war columns appeared as anti-war. The New York Times was almost as bad. Of 43 columns on the war, only 7 opposed, 14 called for escalation, and 22 called for a new idea. Despite polls showing more women than men opposed escalation, not one anti-war woman got to share her views in either paper. In fact, women wrote only 12 of 110 columns in FAIR's report. Fareed Zakaria, giving voice to the Beltway consensus, said: "It is time to get real about Afghanistan. Withdrawal is not a serious option." Does this mean that 51 to 53% of the American people simply aren't "serious?" The "Church of the Savvy," as today's guest Jay Rosen calls them, clearly think so. -- Laura Flanders
Email this pageGRITtv: The Taking of Wheeler Hall: University of California Protests
In California, the state budget crisis has led the legislature to propose a 32 percent increase in tuition for state schools. But students aren't willing - or in many cases, able - to bear the brunt of the money problems. Independent journalists Brandon Jourdan and Daniel Martinez were in California and caught this video when the students at UC Berkeley occupied Wheeler Hall, demanding not just lower tuition but fair treatment for immigrant-owned businesses on campus and rehiring union workers who had been laid off.
GRITtv: Dec. 1, 2009
President Obama is about to announce a troop escalation in Afghanistan. Though it's consistent with his campaign promises, public opinion has shifted and now, according to most polls, a majority of the American people oppose the war. We continue our discussion about how nothing seems to change in politics with David Swanson, founder of AfterDowningStreet, and Mark Winston Griffith, on leave from the Drum Major Institute. Jay Rosen, New York University professor and author of "What are Journalists For?," talks about how the media are at least partly to blame for the narrow scope of discussion in Washington.
