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Minding the Media (Media)

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Next available on KCRW 89.9 Santa Monica, CA in 2 days 8 hours 47 minutes
Find another station or time for this program on one of 12 other stations & times
Host: Nick Madigan
Nick Madigan takes a weekly look at how reporters for newspapers, television and other media are doing their jobs. He explores their methods, evaluates their results and questions their thinking.
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Genres: Media, Television
Location: Santa Monica, CA
Language: English

Last updated 758 days ago Update program info

Recent Topics

Swooning over Obama

Tue, Jan 8

Looking at today's primary in New Hampshire, it's easy to see the extent to which Barack Obama has supplanted Hillary Clinton as the Democrats' front-runner, at least if you heed the pundits...

Mea Culpas

Wed, Dec 19

We all make mistakes once in a while. But for journalists, whose job often involves pointing out the errors of others, getting something wrong can be fatal to a career...

Showcase of Dreams

Wed, Dec 12

In the top tier of glossy magazines, none covers celebrity, politics, culture and scandal with quite the panache of Vanity Fair. Its pages offer a slick, impenetrable view of a world of wealth and status, a vicarious thrill for the lowly aspirants of the nether classes. And yet its editor, Graydon Carter, in a bluntly honest interview in yesterday's London Guardian, tells us that despite the magazine's upscale glow, putting it out every month is a tenuous art, subject to all the fears and...

Rewriting History

Wed, Dec 5

If journalism is the first draft of history, we've got our work cut out for us. So many politicians are spinning their own fantastical versions of certain events that it's going to take constant reminding by reporters and columnists to expose the truth and make it stick...

Dishonest Debate

Wed, Nov 28

So Karl Rove, after deciding things were a little too toxic in Bush's White House, was out looking for a job. He knocked on the door at Time magazine, offering his services as a columnist. But the wise editors there said, "Naaah. Too much baggage..."

Bedfellows Unite

Wed, Nov 21

Did you hear the one about an executive at Fox News Channel telling a New York publisher to lie about her affair with a former cop because it might damage Rudy Giuliani's presidential aspirations.

Gender Dynamics

Wed, Nov 14

Hillary Clinton can't catch a break. At least if you listen to her husband...

An Echo Chamber, Silenced

Wed, Nov 7

The writers' strike is playing havoc with fake news...

Smoke and Mirrors

Tue, Oct 30

I received a very unusual phone call yesterday. It was a Bush administration official, apologizing. With what seemed like genuine contrition, R. David Paulison, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was calling to say that some of his subordinates had apparently lost their minds last week when they decided to hold a televised press conference about the California fires without actually including any reporters...

Sorrow in the Fire

Tue, Oct 23

One of the most traumatic things you can do as a reporter is cover a wildfire, not only because of the danger but because you're documenting the devastation that nature visits on defenseless, frightened human beings, many of whom lose everything they own to the flames...

Pain and Potential

Tue, Oct 16

Before I get to how the media reacted to Al Gore's Nobel Prize, I want to mention the death of yet another journalist in Iraq...

Take Name, Wag Finger

Tue, Oct 9

I could start a regular feature called something like "Media Misdeeds and Mistakes," and I---d never lack for examples...

Ignorance and Buffoonery

Tue, Oct 2

I don't usually pay attention to Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, mostly because they deal in ideologically-driven opinions and don't fall under the standard definition of what a journalist is...

The New Order

Tue, Sep 25

What will the journalism of the future look like. Will it continue to obsess over absurd, half-in-the-bag teenybopper celebrities, and insist on making up silly headlines to describe criminal sports figures and tin-pot dictators.

Zip It

Tue, Sep 18

It's amazing how determined the people at Fox are to paint a rosy picture of the Iraq war...

Skies Moody and Dark

Tue, Sep 11

It's been just six years since the dazzling September morning when hijacked airliners smashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania...

Bad Boys in Bathrooms

Tue, Sep 4

For KCRW, I'm Nick Madigan of The Baltimore Sun with Minding the Media As a reporter, one of the most difficult decisions you'll ever have to make is whether to reveal something deeply personal about a public official. Sometimes, if you're serious about your profession and don't work for some screaming tabloid, you'll hold off, primarily because the revelation makes no difference to anyone. About the only time you should go ahead and publish, or say it over the air, is when the fact in...

Living in the Wilderness

Tue, Aug 28

President Bush is flying into New Orleans today for another series of photo ops to mark the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which almost washed away one of America's greatest, most unique cities...

On Rove's Heels

Tue, Aug 21

No one who has worked in the Bush administration, not even the unlamented Donald Rumsfeld, has been as much a subject of conjecture and mystery as Karl Rove...

The Press Gets the Finger

Tue, Aug 14

I spent most of last week by a placid, shimmering-- lake in Ontario, Canada, far from the news, the bleating of Washington's talking heads, the drum of war, the full-throated pitches for Japanese cars. The silence was heavenly. But I was jolted back to reality by the cover of a magazine in a small country store. It read, "The Death of Canadian Journalism..."

Summer Sign-Up 2007

Tue, Aug 7

Support KCRW's Summer SignUp: (http://www.kcrw.com) Summer Sign-Up 2007

Nothing Pure about It

Tue, Jul 31

In the last few days, believe it or not, there was actually some good news in the world of sports. But you had to go to the far side of the earth to find it...

Stop Beating around the Bush

Tue, Jul 24

Ever since John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon squared off in the first televised debate in 1960, the format has been consistent, predictable and, very often, tedious...

Swooping in for the Kill

Tue, Jul 17

Later today, the board of directors of Dow Jones will consider approving a tentative agreement for Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the company, which publishes the venerable Wall Street Journal...

A Woman on the Verge

Tue, Jul 10

Katie Couric is not going crazy. At least not yet. In the 11 months since she became the first woman to anchor a major network news show, nothing seems to have gone right...

Master of the Universe

Tue, Jul 3

Four weeks ago, when Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis Libby, was sentenced to 30 months in prison, and did not receive an immediate pardon from George Bush, many of us hoped the president was letting justice take its course...

Chihuahuas on Steroids

Tue, Jun 26

Tomorrow night, millions of people around the country will flip their TV screens to CNN to watch Larry King's interview with a blonde jailbird who seems to have accomplished nothing except whip the media into a frenzy...

Preexisting Condition

Tue, Jun 19

In his more ironic moments, Michael Moore calls his new documentary, Sicko, "a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on earth"...

Sob Stories

Tue, Jun 12

Now that the media has stopped obsessing about Paris Hilton... Oh, wait, I must have lost my mind: The obsession is alive, thriving and relentless. Just turn on any cable news show....

Fictional Facts

Tue, Jun 5

Ever wonder about all those facts and figures Lou Dobbs trots out on CNN to support his mission of "protecting" the U.S. from immigrants....