Rackham's Color Illustrations for Wagner's "Ring"

Book Description

By the time he began this work, Rackham (1867-1939) was England's leading illustrator, famous throughout the world for his fantastic interpretations of fairy tales and myths. This, his masterpiece, is regarded by some as the greatest representation of Wagner's drama ever produced. Includes 64 illustrations and 9 vignettes.

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful Work - Recommended for a fan of Illustration.......2007-09-30

I'm swiftly becoming enamored of the old-time illustrators - Joseph Clement Coll, Charles Dana Gibson, N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle, and Alphonse Mucha to name but a few. I'm now happy to add Arthur Rackham to that list. As both a fan of illustration (fantasy, comic book, and otherwise), as well as a bit of a mythology buff, I was thrilled to see that Dover (whose name, in my opinion, always spells quality) had produced a volume of Rackham's illustrations of Wagner's Ring Cycle, which is itself based on a famed tale of Norse mythology. The illustrations, as the book notes, were first published in 1910 and 1911, respectively. They are uniformly beautiful, bringing the story to vibrant life. Rackham was clearly a skilled draftsman, and his work has that turn-of-the-century look that is very compelling (Gibson and Wyeth had a similar style).

This book is printed on high-quality glossy paper and features wonderful illustrations of dwarves, heroes, valkyrie, gods, and others that Rackham captures with skill and aplomb. Each drawing is accompanied by a discription, helping to tie the illustrations together and explain the plot to those who might not be familiar with it.While the volume is quite slim (only 64 pages, plus 4 of introductor/background material) it is very much worthwhile. I hope you will pick it up and enjoy it.

Excellent visual introduction to spark initial interest in Cycle + Beautiful illustrations!!!.......2007-02-23

This book is a delight for anybody who loves Richard Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen" ("The Nibelung's Ring") operatic tetralogy. While I could have wished for just a little more detail in the captions - which could therefore have allowed the entire story of this cycle to be told (a few things consequently get missed - not really major, but wouldn't have hurt nevertheless!) - they are otherwise excellent; and the paintings themselves are not only outstanding art-pieces in themselves - they also are excellent visualisations of what Wagner was trying to do! They're also a wonderful corrective to the all-too-many "modernisations" that for some people like myself are hurting the visual aspect of a given opera's appreciation. [Often those "modernisations" are in bad taste, travesties of the composers' and librettists' intentions, and are either boring, shocking for mere shock value, or just plain BAD!!!!!]

Most warmly recommended for both confirmed Rackham lovers as well as Wagner lovers AND for those who're just getting started with the process of getting to know Wagner's stupendous cycle!!! GET IT!!!!

For Rackham lovers.......2005-09-19

All 64 Rackham's images for Wagner's Ring collected in one book is a grate thing to have if a Rackham lover. Reproduction of the images is not the best possible though. All in all, it is still a good book to have. Rackham is magical.

What can't be done on stage.......2004-01-29

I bought this book after I bought the Met's dvd of the Ring and fell in love with Norse sagas. Rackham brings that old world feel with all the knarls, worts and all. Wagner's music inspies perhaps the most powerful images of man: lust, power, love, sin and redemption; Rackham's watercolors are faithful to this and help amplfiy the opera.

For Rackham fans.......2003-05-02

Nice collection of hard-to-find Rackham images, but not the best color reproduction. Still a good book for the Rackham enthusiast.

RACKHAM'S COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS FOR WAGNER'S "RING"

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RACKHAM'S COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS FOR WAGNER'S "RING"
James (Intro. & Captions) Spero
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KBBW88

Book Description

Life is a difficult thing to destroy completely; its persistence, though fragile is nigh eternal. It adapts, changes, evolves; it clings to its existence jealously. Even on Earth, as the chemicals and poisons unleashed by centuries of pollution and war sank deep into the soil and strangled the very air itself, new life struggled to gain purchase in this most toxic environment. Such is the great irony of life that it persists in spite of our selves and though we have made a hell of paradise, we could not stop the cycle of life. This supplement for Mutant Chronicles Warzone features new Tribes from the US and Canada as well as new troops for the Eurasian Tribes. Additionally the forces of the Megacorporations are revealed and the schemes of Valpurgius is revealed.

Book Description

The official, fully authorized full-color guide to the characters, places, and landscapes of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth as depicted in The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.

Fully illustrated with almost 300 color photographs, including stunning new images from the extended director's versions of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, and exclusive "first-look" shots from The Return of the King, this Complete Visual Companion now tells the whole tale of The Lord of the Rings in sumptuous detail.

The many characters, creatures, and strange lands of Middle-earth encountered by the Fellowship of the Ring in their epic journey are here brought to life: from the magical Elven realms of Rivendell and Lothlorien to the abandoned Dwarven kingdom of Moria; from the wizard Saruman's stronghold at Isengard to the land of the Horse-lords, Rohan; from their last-ditch fortress at Helm's Deep to Minas Tirith, the city-kingdom of the proud Men of Gondor; from the haunted Paths of the Dead to the battlefields of Pelennor and the overrun city of Osgiliath; from Cirith Ungol and the Nazgul's tower of sorcery at Minas Morgul into the very heart of Mordor. Along the way our heroes will encounter Elves and Ents, Uruk-hai and Orcs, Trolls, and Haradrim on their towering war-elephants, the mumakil. The Companion introduces readers to the monstrous Shelob the spider, to the Corsairs of Umbar, and to that pitiful but deadly creature Gollum.

This omnibus edition also includes brand-new sections appearing in print for the first time, which take the story of the quest of the Fellowship beyond Mount Doom, all the way to the hearbreaking finale at the Grey Havens.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Companion for LOTR fans........2007-03-19

I purchased this item for my 8-year old nephew who discovered it at his school library and could not get enough time with it. It is very popular at his school. Even though he has the other three individual visual companions he still wanted this one as it has pictures that are not in the other books. If you or your child are a LOTR fan you will want to add this book to your ccollection.

A good LOTR book but..........2005-06-17

While Jude Fisher's writing is even and sometimes evocative, this compilation of all three visual companions feels a bit superfluous. I mean, Lord of the Rings is great, and I'm happy to see that it hasn't been merchandised to death like the Star Wars prequels. But this isn't one of my favorite LOTR books for three reasons:
1. Not enough images from Return of the King and too Fellowship heavy 2. An unsubstantial feel to the Isengard and Gondor chapters 3.Certain characters don't get wrapped up (Saruman and Denethor) But it's still a good read and a nice addition to anyone's LORD OF THE RINGS collection. Personally though, I prefer the 'ART OF' books.

A Nice Compilation.......2005-01-26

I purchased this book because I had been told that it contained all the photos from Jude Fisher's three previous visual companions: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King, which I had seen, but not purchased. While it does have some of the photos, it doesn't have all of them. Photos in certain sections have been replaced by others, and in my opinion, in some cases, the replacements aren't better pictures. Two things would have made this book worthy of five stars. First, if it had been done as an oversize hardcover like its predecessors, and second, if the three individual visual companions had been entirely reprinted in this one volume, and then additional photos added. Now that I have this trilogy compilation, I won't be buying the other three individual companions, but I am sorry not to have those missing photos.

Great Picture Book.......2005-01-18

good wrap up.......2005-01-06

This is a good summary of the three movies as well as the three other visual companions. As the owner of all three previous companions, I found some of this information old, but still interesting. The pictures as well as the end of this companion, which gives good details, is a comprehensive look at the movies with a couple book tie-ins. Overall, I would say it's a great buy if you don't own the other three, and still interesting if you do.

Lord of the Rings Complete Visual Companion: Complete Visual Companion

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Lord of the Rings Complete Visual Companion: Complete Visual Companion

Manufacturer: Tandem Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 1417667257

Book Description

This volume is a collection of time-series statistics of electronic media in the U.S.; chiefly broadcasting and cable, with some information on newer technologies. Intended as a revised edition of The Mass Media Aspen Institute Guide To Communication Industry Trends (Praeger, 1978), the present work draws heavily on the earlier book but corrects, greatly updates, and considerably expands upon it.

Electronic media a guide to trends in broadcasting and newer technologies, 1920-1983

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Electronic media a guide to trends in broadcasting and newer technologies, 1920-1983
Christopher H. Sterling
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OA601O

Book Description

Few people are aware that Dennis Wheatley, in his day one of the biggest selling novelists in the world, spent the Second World War as a member of Winston Churchill's Joint Planning Staff. Wheatley's job was to confuse the enemy by writing "plausible official documents" and to feed them to the Nazis. Here is that little known and intriguing story, drawn from previously unpublished restricted papers, and with a foreword by one of today's best-selling authors, Frederick Forsyth.

Customer Reviews:

A Desperate Chance.......2006-04-17

As a boy I read many of the novels of Dennis Wheatley, always knowing I was poisoning my brain by doing so. His novels of th occult like THE DEVIL RIDES OUT were like exquisite embroideries of sin and pulp, and the adventures of his super-agent Gregory Sallust showed who really won the war--the socially conservative. Yet he was a master storyteller and there was something for every taste. Here in the USA his books were a little hard to get, Bantam published a few of the spooky ones, others came to me through kindly relatives from overseas, and often they could be found in the dumpsters outside the British Airways terminals at JFK, hardened immigrants getting rid of the bilge before beginning new American lives in which Wheatley would be distinctly a back number.

Haven't thought of him in years, but stumbling across a copy of Craid Cabell's exciting new book is like stumbling straight into a gold mine. I don't know how he did it, but Cabell managed to read about 1,000,000 words (he estimates) of unpublished material by Dennis Wheatley, and condenses and edits a lot of it to present in this volume. I took it by the title and subtitle that this was to be a biography of the novelist. Alas no, it is severely limited to a few years in which his services as an "imagineer" were persuaded to flow in Churchill's war cabinet, when, like most Englishmen, Wheatley sincerely believed that a Nazi invasion was right around the corner and that only the most desperate remedies would be any good in stopping it.

I never knew that it was Wheatley who thought up some of the most amazing counterintelligence operations of WWII, including the stunts later publicized as "I was Monty's Double" and Clifton Webb in THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS. He kept his genius under wraps for the benefit of his country. It would be like if the USA hired Stephen King to divert the attention of an invading force by the sheer power of his imagination.

Cabell himself, who provides lengthy notes and asides, is sort of incapable of writing a coherent passage, and the vaunted foreword by spy king Frederick Forsyth doesn't say very much except that he once had lunch with Wheatley when he was young and the Wheat was old. But you'll buy it anyway just for the gold.

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Perception Management And The Basic Assumption of Official Doctrine

You are as liberal as the man who owns you

Really.....Reporter Bernard Goldberg disagrees...

What Liberal Media? What Round Earth?

Why Are We In Iraq? Where Is Osama? Why Are We $9 Trillion in Debt? Right-Wing Spin Machine!

What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News
Eric Alterman
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Media Studies | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the Twenty-First Century

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Public Editor Number One: The Collected Columns (with Reflections, Reconsiderations, and Even a Few Retractions) of the First Ombudsman of The New York Times

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ASIN: 0465001777

Amazon.com

The incredulity begins with the title What Liberal Media?, journalist Eric Alterman's refutation of widely flung charges of left-wing bias, and never lets up. The book is unlikely to make many friends among conservative media talking heads. Alterman picks apart charges made by Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, George Will, Sean Hannity, and others (even the subtitle refers to a popular book by former CBS producer Bernard Goldberg that argues a lefty slant in news coverage). But the perspectives of less-incendiary figures, including David Broder and Howard Kurtz, are also dissected in Alterman's quest to prove that not only do the media lack a liberal slant but that quite the opposite is true. Much of Alterman's argument comes down to this: the conservatives in the newspapers, television, talk radio, and the Republican party are lying about liberal bias and repeating the same lies long enough that they've taken on a patina of truth. Further, the perception of such a bias has cowed many media outlets into presenting more conservative opinions to counterbalance a bias, which does not, in fact, exist, says Alterman. In methodically shooting down conservative charges, Alterman employs extensive endnotes, all of which are referenced with superscript numbers throughout the body of the book. Those little numbers seem to say, "Look, I've done my homework." What Liberal Media? is a book very much of 2003 and will likely lose some relevance as political powers and media arrangements evolve. But it's likely to be a tonic for anyone who has suspected that in a media environment overflowing with conservatives, the charges of bias are hard to swallow. For liberals hoping someone will take off the gloves and mix it up with the verbal brawlers of the right, Eric Alterman is a champion. --John Moe

Book Description

"Bold, counterintuitive, and cathartic.... Alterman is ready for a bar fight, and he comes out swinging." New York Times Book Review

Widely acclaimed and hotly contested, veteran journalist Eric Alterman's ambitious investigation into the true nature of the U.S. news media touched a nerve and sparked debate across the country. As the question of whose interests the media protects-and how-continues to raise hackles, Alterman's sharp, utterly convincing assessment cuts through the cloud of inflammatory rhetoric, settling the question of liberal bias in the news once and for all. Eye-opening, witty, and thoroughly and solidly researched, What Liberal Media? is required reading for media watchers, and anyone concerned about the potentially dangerous consequences for the future of democracy in America.

Customer Reviews:

Perception Management And The Basic Assumption of Official Doctrine.......2007-08-27

What the accusation of a liberal-leaning media structure does is establish a [corporate/state nexus] desired framework which serves as a crucial overarching structure for journalism/discussion: this far, and no further. That way, anything that falls outside of the framework is ignored, attacked, spun, or omitted outright. It is an exercise in obfuscation. Within the various mediums of mainline media, it is difficult for many to distinguish between "news," entertainment, and indoctrination. [lean heavily towards the latter] "News," shows, movies, sports and Empty-V all deliver products which essentially sell a specific mindset, and can do so even more effectively than "commercials" do, yet are essentially little more than advertisements. How? People have long been conditioned to identify themselves with such 'products' and not to see reality as it is, thereby establishing a media induced unreality. Which leads to Alterman's book.

I found my copy in a used book shop last week, and even though I was already quite aware of the right-wing fostered mythos of the so-called liberal media, decided to pick it up and wasn't disappointed. He's not exactly covering new ground - linguist and life-long activist/dissident Noam Chomsky was making the same point decades ago. The works of Charles Lewis, Mark Crispin Miller, Chris Hedges and Amy Goodman also come to mind. Most of what is seen or read in mainstream "news" is so carefully managed that the result is little more than the transmission of elite opinion to the masses for strategic purposes. People are instructed as to which views they should adhere to based around the desires of hawkish elites and vested corporate interests, hardly "liberal" in their professional/institutional capacities, who have to sell an open society a democracy-friendly movie script in order to, from their standing, win as many "hearts and minds" as possible in order to suppress dissent i.e. democratic interference to illegality and immorality. As Chomsky warns, "propaganda is to democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian society." Or to cite Alterman, "many conservatives who attack the media for its alleged liberalism do so because the constant drumbeat of groundless accusation has proven an effective weapon in weakening journalism's watchdog function."

The agenda setting mainline media is nothing more than a bullhorn public relation's/propaganda effort for the corporate and political interests it is owned by. The media is supposed to serve as a checks and balance system between Power and The People, but instead it does the exact opposite and ensures the right-wing profits over people agenda. There is always a subversion of language which precedes fascist movements. Such movements seek to instill a parallel reality while vehemently attacking any who dare question motive or validity. It is for this reason that free thinking moral agents need be gravely concerned over what's happened to our media, and the ensuing belligerence of authoritarians who relish its dumbed down, militant tone. For the accusation of a liberal slant gets incredible mileage in shifting the entire national debate much further to the right than what many are able or are willing to concede. Alterman himself even steps lightly here, and although is willing to state the obvious with regard to the 2000 and 04 elections, is quick to avoid venturing onto conspiratorial groud per se, something more professional liberals need to overcome as an effective means of altering the established national dialogue. The fact is, people with convergent interests, often times unaccountable to the public, conspire to carve a bigger slice of pie for themselves all the time. Yet this top-down, deeply ingrained bias against lending credence to conspiracies is a cornerstone of right-wing rhetoric and has unfortunately prevented many, liberal or authoritarian, from seeing what should be many painfully obvious truths regarding the American empire. Although the tide is shifting, I remain unconvinced that the brainwashed public mind will evolve beyond serving the interests of dominant institutions.

You are as liberal as the man who owns you.......2007-08-13

One Republican troll who probably did not read the book said, "First off, In a recent poll, over 90% of the news correspondents in Washington, DC said they voted Democrat.".

But there is a problem. The corporations that own the media outlets where these reporters work sympathize for the Republican party. The Republican party is the party of corporations.
In one of the chapters Alterman explains that no matter how liberal a reporter is, he will censor his own work, trying to please his editor, and the editor about that editor, and the managing editor, all the way to the top, which in the case of MSNBC, is General Electric, for example.

Right-wingers do not give us example of media bias, but go on yapping about how polls show reporters vote Democratic.

Prove it with a study. Prove it that corporate-owned TV channels and newspapers are publishing lefty stuff. That's right. You don't have anything but cries of "liberal media!, liberal media!"

91% of talk radio (political) content is conservative.

Really.....Reporter Bernard Goldberg disagrees..........2007-03-23

First off, In a recent poll, over 90% of the news correspondents in Washington, DC said they voted Democrat.

Moving on...Bernard Goldberg has a book out called "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distorts the News"

Here is some of what he had to say in an interview:

"Well, I think we marginalize conservative views. I think too many people in the big-time media think conservatives, in too many cases, are just right-wing nuts."

"They marginalize conservatives mainly.. . I could give you many, many examples, Terry, but mainly by identifying every conservative who's in a story because -- and I think rightly -- the audience needs to know that these people are conservatives, that their views are conservative views and we should know, as they say, where they're coming from. But the very fact that we rarely identify liberals tells you, at least it tells me, that journalists very often think that these liberal views aren't liberal at all, but really mainstream, civilized, reasonable views. And that's the problem, I think."

"Let me just give you one little example. It was during impeachment, which we can all agree was a very, very big, very important story. And right before the impeachment proceedings began, Senators went up to sign what they call "an oath book," promising to be fair and impartial. As they went up, Peter Jennings, doing a live play-by-play, on ABC, identified Senator Santorum as a young conservative Senator from Pennsylvania -- determinately conservative. Then Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was also a determined conservative. Senator Smith from New Hampshire was a very, very conservative Senator from New Hampshire. Those are exact quotes. And I think that's absolutely fine.

This is impeachment, it's a political process, we need to know that these are conservatives, and their conservatism may affect their views. But Marvin, Barbara Boxer was simply Barbara Boxer from California. Ted Kennedy was simply Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts. Paul Wellstone was simply Paul Wellstone from Minnesota. Now, did Peter Jennings, who is a bright, intelligent, excellent, first-rate newsman, did he really think that the conservative views would affect the vote, but that liberal views wouldn't affect the vote?

You see, this reminds me of the bad-old days, and we both remember these days, Marvin, when the only time a criminal was identified in a news story by race is if he were black. Why was that? And if the criminal was white, by the way, his race meant nothing because the black criminal was seen as what -- different, out of the mainstream, certainly inferior, not just inferior to you and me, inferior to white criminals, and possibly dangerous, too."

What Liberal Media? What Round Earth?.......2006-06-14

Alterman tries to deny the obvious left-wing bias of the media through fallacious arguments. For one, he compares complaints of liberal bias with complaints about media bias against minorities. In actuality, at one time, minorities were in fact seldom shown on TV, and then almost always in negative, stereotyped roles (e. g., black maids, Asian coolies). But those times have changed. Not so with the liberal bias. In fact, I sensed the liberal bias of the media even as a child, long before I knew what a liberal even was. I saw the constant glorification of hippies and those who protested the war in Vietnam, while there was complete silence on the cruelties of the Communists. At that time, I wondered why. Now I know.

Alterman tries vainly to ridicule the expose of liberal media bias by stating that there would have to be some sort of conspiracy in order for there to be a bias. In actuality, since most journalists are liberals, no conspiracy of any kind is necessary for a liberal bias to exist. Liberals simply do what comes naturally to them. As it stands, when a new set of Democratic phraseology arises, it almost simultaneously is spoken also by members of the mainstream media. This proves that there is some degree of organized collusion between the media and the Democratic party.

Every election cycle, it is the same. Every charge against a Republican is publicized, no matter how trivial. Democrats are coddled-unless their conduct is so egregious that it cannot possibly be ignored. Whenever Jesse Jackson opens his mouth, especially against Republicans, he gets profuse, uncritical coverage, no matter how racially inflammatory and baseless his accusations are. Conservative blacks get almost no coverage.

Alterman tells us that "when it bleeds, it leads". Nice try, but this does not absolve the media of its left-wing bias. There is a double standard against violence. Violence against homosexuals is reported, while violence by homosexuals is not. Right wing violence (e. g., abortion clinic bombings) is demonized, while left wing violence is not. The persecution of Christians worldwide has received almost zero coverage in the mainstream media, because it does not fit their agenda of who a victim is. One can go on and on.

Why Are We In Iraq? Where Is Osama? Why Are We $9 Trillion in Debt? Right-Wing Spin Machine!.......2006-03-24

The truth is out and finally people have started waking up! Pravda, I mean, Fox News, is the Republican spin machine. Anyone who wishes to know why this country has gone downhill in the last six years, only has to look at the garbage compiled on mediamatters.org. This is nonsense America is being fed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Republicans now have all branches of Congress, the presidency, and the media, and they still can't get it together. They've failed, and their drones, Ann Coulter, who doesn't even research her info before she's interviewed and is pulled out onto the carpet when she isn't on the GOP's Fox News, Michelle Malkin, who like Coulter, has been caught plagerizing on more than one occasion, and thinks detainment camps are just great, even though she's Japanese herself, but don't let that rich immigrant parents background she has get in the way, college drop outs, Sean Hannity, and drug addict, Rush Limbaugh, pervert and sexual harasser, Bill O'Reilly, and the list goes on and on and on. These guys are running out of material. If Coulter isn't advocating poisoning the Supreme Court, or saying that New York would surrender to terrorists, she's saying that the left are traitors. Which party is outting the CIA which is the very definition of treason? Which party put Hollywood in positions of power in the government, (Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Sonny Bono)? THE RIGHT WING! These people are flunkies, and they continue to get their pockets lined, while the Right wing steals our money.

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What Liberal Media
Eric Alterman
Manufacturer: BASIC BOOKS * CIVITAS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UCY0V8

What Liberal Media? (The Truth About Bias and the News)

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What Liberal Media? (The Truth About Bias and the News)

Manufacturer: Recorded Books LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Cassette

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12 cassettes/16.75 hours

Eyes right: conservatives are winning the media war. How do they do it?(Book Review) : An article from: Columbia Journalism Review

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Eyes right: conservatives are winning the media war. How do they do it?(Book Review) : An article from: Columbia Journalism Review
Rick Perlstein
Manufacturer: Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0009FKADI
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Columbia Journalism Review, published by Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism on March 1, 2003. The length of the article is 3030 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Eyes right: conservatives are winning the media war. How do they do it?(Book Review)
Author: Rick Perlstein
Publication: Columbia Journalism Review (Refereed)
Date: March 1, 2003
Publisher: Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism
Volume: 41 Issue: 6 Page: 52(4)

Article Type: Book Review

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Media critic, critique thyself: Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media? Is as shoddy as the books it attacks. (Columns).: An article from: Reason

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Makes some good points

Media critic, critique thyself: Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media? Is as shoddy as the books it attacks. (Columns).: An article from: Reason
Cathy Young
Manufacturer: Reason Foundation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Reason, published by Reason Foundation on July 1, 2003. The length of the article is 1374 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Media critic, critique thyself: Eric Alterman's What Liberal Media? Is as shoddy as the books it attacks. (Columns).
Author: Cathy Young
Publication: Reason (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2003
Publisher: Reason Foundation
Volume: 35 Issue: 3 Page: 20(2)

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Makes some good points.......2006-07-10

Do the media have a liberal bias?

Cathy Young indicates that such a bias is self-evident. After all, a large majority of the media is liberal. And these days, where the media is unafraid to put its views in its editorials (and even in its supposedly unbiased news reporting), that would give the media a liberal bias.

What Young says may well be true. But I think it is overstated. In addition to articles in which the media (perhaps unfairly) encourage us to be liberal, we see plenty of sensationalist material that would (perhaps unfairly) logically encourage us to be conservative. My conclusion is that much of the media simply needs improvement and far more adherence to journalistic standards, independent of everything else.

In this article, Young takes issue with Eric Alterman's book, "What Liberal Media?" In that book, Alterman says that the media are in fact "slanted in favor of the right, partly because they've been cowed by complaints of left-wing bias."

I'm sure you can guess what I think of this. Yes, the media may indeed have done a few things differently in response to such charges. But I suspect the overall effect has not been a change in political stance. I suspect the result, if anything, has been even worse reporting.

Young spends a little time showing some flaws in Alterman's footnoted facts. That's fair; while a few errors do not always mean much, it does alert us to the fact that we need to check what people say (including Alterman and Young herself).

As Young relates, Alterman's argument is that most "establishment" journalists aren't as liberal as they're made out to be. Well, maybe. In addition, these journalists bend over backwards to be fair. Um, I watched Peter Jennings for a while, and he appeared to bend over backwards to be unfair, most of the time. And Jennings was not the only one. I think Alterman is totally wrong here.

Alterman also says that it is the owners who call the shots. That makes sense until one looks hard to see what the media are saying. Once again, I feel that Alterman is a little off base here.

In addition, Alterman appears to regard many moderate and liberal elements of the media as conservative! One example is the liberal "New Republic" magazine. The New Republic is consistently liberal on economic issues, and it certainly is partisan in favor of the Democrats.

What about Bill O'Reilly? As Young explains, O'Reilly supports abortion rights, gun control, and environmental regulations. I would think that might make him a moderate in most people's eyes. But no, Alterman appears to consider him "an undiluted right-winger."

Young explains that all this does not mean that the conservative critiques of the media are correct. She finds Ann Coulter to be similar to Michael Moore (although she does mention that Coulter is much slimmer). But Young does, quite rightly, ask that the media critics critique themselves. And I agree. I think the burden of proof is on them, and I advise them to be on their best behavior when they try to defend such controversial theses.

Working the refs.(Book Review): An article from: The Progressive

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Working the refs.(Book Review): An article from: The Progressive
Matthew Rothschild
Manufacturer: The Progressive, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Progressive, published by The Progressive, Inc. on May 1, 2003. The length of the article is 1411 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Working the refs.(Book Review)
Author: Matthew Rothschild
Publication: The Progressive (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2003
Publisher: The Progressive, Inc.
Volume: 67 Issue: 5 Page: 42(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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