Media criticism sites

May 11, 2007 9:50 PM

Want to learn more about the media flood? Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting produces a magazine and a radio show. Browse their archives by issue area, region, or media outlet. Alternately, there's the Columbia Journalism Review (here's their requisite dig at digg), the American Journalism Review, and the (previously linked) On the Media (which doesn't attempt hard-hitting media analysis, but has some quality interviews and features that give back story behind a lot of stories).
posted by serazin (21 comments total)

This battle is already over. Fair and indepent media, such as blogs, have already won.

It may take the larger 'news' corporations to realise it though, but then again they are protecting huge advertising revenue to go along with their big audiences - but, IMHO, they are dinosaurs on the edge of extinction.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 10:39 PM on May 11, 2007

Also I am not so humble in this area when I say IMHO.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 10:40 PM on May 11, 2007

Aswell also, I live in New Zealand where mass media, in relation to the US, is a telephone call.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 10:47 PM on May 11, 2007

This battle is already over. Fair and indepent media, such as blogs, have already won.

except that the vast majority of people in the u.s.a. don't read blogs. in our country blogs are barely a blip on the radar, media conglomeration is totally out of hand here. blogs get some attention in passing, but they don't add up to much. i'll ask my folks tomorrow, since i'm visiting and i bet everything i own they don't even know what a blog is. i guarantee that 90% of my extended family (all from farming backgrounds and on both sides i have between 6 to 13 aunts and uncles) have no clue what a blog is. i mention my families backgrounds since they are a pretty good representation of middle america (i.e. the majority). they go to fox, as do the newspapers they read. half of the editorials in the local papers since i've been back (the midwest) have been from fox pundits.
posted by andywolf at 11:00 PM on May 11, 2007

oh and if you didn't know (that sounds condescending, not meant to be though), fox is the equivalent of being educated on world affairs my hand puppets at a church fair.
posted by andywolf at 11:04 PM on May 11, 2007

by, not "my"
posted by andywolf at 11:05 PM on May 11, 2007

The China Media Project of the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at HKU is pretty good for, er, Chinese media.
posted by Abiezer at 11:09 PM on May 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Fair and indepent media, such as blogs, have already won.

If by 'won' you mean 'have cornered the market on LOLCATS'.
posted by docgonzo at 11:24 PM on May 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

andywold: homunculus introduced me to Fox's news content last month in this thread.

On previ
posted by Samuel Farrow at 11:37 PM on May 11, 2007

Just wanted to second FAIR's podcast. Good stuff. Current episode has a piece on the war/etc but also a look at the 'women are opting-out/giving up' trend that happens before each mother's day.
posted by ao4047 at 12:36 AM on May 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

This battle is already over. Fair and indepent media, such as blogs, have already won....

As well also, I live in New Zealand where mass media, in relation to the US, is a telephone call.

Nice Telecom analogy. C'mon, sf—the New Zealand mass media is uniformly terrible, largely owned by foreign conglomerates like Newscorp and Fairfax (or, worse, Canadians), and the local PBS equivalent broadcasts in a language that about 2% of people can understand. And nobody seems to be complaining (unless someone messes with the sacred Coronation Street schedules).

What's the revolutionary, new-media counter-paradigm to this dire state of affairs that you invoke? Jessica Rose? The Herald website? Kiwiblog? We don't even have proper broadband yet, for Christ's sakes.
posted by Sonny Jim at 12:46 AM on May 12, 2007

For American papers, don't forget Romenesko.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:05 AM on May 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

I wish fair and independent media had "won." If that were so, we'd be out of the woods.

Wake me up when a majority of Americans actually give a shit about anything other than their own comfort.
posted by spitbull at 5:21 AM on May 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

And also, who says blogs are "fairer" (individually) than anything else? I see much more overt partisanship in the blogosphere, which is only "fairer" in aggregate, and then only due to low barriers to entry.

The right's ownership of talk radio dwarfs the blogosphere in any case as an opinion-making force. Still. Believe it.
posted by spitbull at 5:22 AM on May 12, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wanna see how the other half lives? Try Accuracy in Media. You'll love their story on Big Media's coverup of Sadaam Hussein's involvement to the Oklahoma City bombing.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:20 AM on May 12, 2007

less leaning media coverage

also, how is this new? A search on fair.org turns up 25 results. This is not just a double but a 25th.
posted by caddis at 7:33 AM on May 12, 2007

i guarantee that 90% of my extended family (all from farming backgrounds and on both sides i have between 6 to 13 aunts and uncles) have no clue what a blog is. i mention my families backgrounds since they are a pretty good representation of middle america (i.e. the majority).

Hey, David Broder has a MeFi account!
posted by aaronetc at 8:52 AM on May 12, 2007

Hey caddis, I searched for "fairness and accuracy in reporting" and got 3 hits, all of which were comments. Ironically, someone else in this thread had already linked to Romenessco too. I guess we all make mistakes.
posted by serazin at 8:59 AM on May 12, 2007

How Reporters Who Attack Bloggers Are Like Beauticians
posted by amberglow at 10:45 AM on May 12, 2007

here's but one from my search

This thread is a double. I am not criticizing you, just pointing that out. I have probably double posted a dozen times, and in most of those I searched first. No big deal.
posted by caddis at 11:18 AM on May 12, 2007

Don't forget the Center for Media and Democracy (home of prwatch and sourcewatch)
posted by amberglow at 12:29 PM on May 12, 2007