Crap Detection 101 Howard Rheingold offers a fairly in-depth primer on media and internet BS detection. Lots of links to resources for enabling critical analysis of various information sources included.
posted by telstar on Jun 30, 2009 - 17 comments

"You Don't Understand Our Audience" --what John Hockenberry (formerly of NBC, now at MIT Media Lab) learned about network news--good guys and bad guys, the "emotional center", synergy, facts, and why fewer and fewer watch nowadays.
posted by amberglow on Dec 31, 2007 - 65 comments

Their view is that psyops can be directed toward global transregional audiences. My view is that that’s not possible because it directs psyops against our own friends and allies and even at our own public. ... In Mind Games, Columbia Journalism Review thoroughly examines the disintegrating lines between Public Affairs, Psy-Ops, IO, the public, and the truth. Some old friends are mentioned too: the Lincoln Group, the Rendon Group, the Pentagon, our own media, and others. If truth is our greatest weapon, as Rumsfeld has said, how can the administration hope to prevail in an information war when it is not honest with itself?
posted by amberglow on May 1, 2006 - 21 comments

The dicey dynamics of exposing untruths. An interesting bit in the Columbia Journalism Review on why journalists tend to focus on politicians' small lies and let the big ones slide.
posted by gottabefunky on Sep 10, 2003 - 39 comments

Flutterby wonders what the difference is between those who have faith in media and those who see them as "an unending stream of barely edited press-releases."
posted by Mo Nickels on Oct 6, 2000 - 5 comments