
 |
|
May 25, 2012
Mark Clayton: Is Hillary's State Dept. hacking Al Qaeda? Not quite
Erika Bolstad: Temple cancels Wasserman Schultz speech
The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman: The former president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, whose members included the likes of Julia Child, is back with contemporary Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Sweet Noodle Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread
May 24, 2012
Jeff Jacoby: The peace process battered Israel's reputation
Michael Muskal: 'Pro-choice' position hits record low, according to poll
Chris Farrell: Are We in a Tech Bubble?
The Kosher Gourmet by Penelope Wall: PHILLY CHEESE STEAKS --- hold the steak!
May 23, 2012
Tony Pugh: More private colleges offering tuition discounts
Mary Beth Franklin: How to Choose the Right Annuity for You
Tina Susman: The wig wasn't enough: Man gets 13 years for posing as his dead mom
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen:A simple way to do fish right
May 22, 2012
Warren Richey: Can US group challenge overseas surveillance act? Supreme Court to decide
Thomas M. Anderson: Walking Away From a Mortgage
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: Enjoy a celebration of the most rich and layered flavors: Black bean, sweet potato and quinoa chili
May 21, 2012
Mark Clayton: Cybersecurity: How US utilities passed up chance to protect their networks
Howard LaFranchi: NATO summit: Who will foot the bill for long-term Afghanistan security?
Chris Farrell : Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
Stephen Whiteside, Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Social anxiety disorder --- or just shy?
Guy Jackson : Victim's father regrets death of Lockerbie bomber
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: Famed chef's veal shoulder farsumagru: A festive meat course for late spring
May 18, 2012
Rabbi Berel Wein: Striving: The People of the Book's Book for (All of) the People
Steven Goldberg: 5 Great Stock Picks and the Exchange-Traded Fund that Owns Them
Mary Pickett, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Don't be forced into gluten-free lifestyle based merely on a doctor's false-positive test
The Kosher Gourmet by Carolyn Malcoun: DIY healthy lunchbox treats: HOMEMADE FRUIT BARS for kids and brown-bagging adults alike
May 17, 2012
Warren Richey: Teacher fired for being unwed and pregnant can sue religious school, court rules
Josh Mitnick: Netanyahu's 'centrist' coalition is already proving it's anything but
Steven Goldberg: Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
Amina Khan: Research links coffee to lower death rates
The Kosher Gourmet by Faith Duran : Cheesy Potato Breakfast Casserole with Cheddar and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
May 16, 2012
Carmen Terzic, M.D., Ph.D. : Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: A variety of exercises can help improve balance
Melissa Healy: National strategy on Alzheimer's disease aims to halt it by 2025
The Kosher Gourmet by Joyce White : GOODNESS GRACIOUS: GREENS! 4 winning recipes that are no longer just for down-home folks (Includes expert tips & techniques)
May 15, 2012
Kristen Chick: Obama administration resumes arms sales to Bahrain despite serious unresolved human rights issues. Activists feel abandoned
Pat Mertz Esswein: Homes are now affordable again and mortgage rates are low. What you need to know before you buy
Kathy Kristof: Our Practical Investor Fights Inflation with These 6 Investments
Sue Hubbard, M.D.: The Kid's Doctor: Lactose intolerant young child? Check again
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Hunt: Spread a Little Excitement with EXOTIC CONDIMENTS (4 RECIPES)
May 14, 2012
Lisa Gerstner: How to Protect Your Identity, Finances If You Lose Your Phone
Harvard Health Letters: Heart disease and dementia
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: MANGO COCONUT OAT MORNING MUFFINS are a bright but hearty delight
May 11, 2012
Jessica L. Anderson: Get the Best Deal on a Used Car
Jett Stone: Forget face-lifts and fake knees. Scientists have seen the fountain of youth --- and it's broccoli
The Kosher Gourmet by Chef Mario Batali: The famed chef's vegetable dish that tastes true to the season: FAVAS AND SUGAR SNAP PEAS WITH POTATOES AND TARRAGON
May 10, 2012
Sergei L. Loiko: Putin sends warning to U.S., NATO in Victory Day speech at Red Square
Mary Rourke: How being a 'mentch' got Vidal Sasoon his start and fighting in Israel's War of Independence provided him with confidence and a strong sense of his own identity
Jeff Bertolucci: Get Home Phone Service for Less Than $10 a Month
The Kosher Gourmet by Betty Rosbottom: Gleaming with its golden, crimson, and snowy white hues, this silken smooth and creamy STRAWBERRY ORANGE TRIFLE looks impressive, but is easy to prepare
May 9, 2012
Sharon Palmer, R.D. How you can reduce your risk -- or delay -- chronic diseases associated with aging
|
| |
Jewish World Review
March 18, 2011
12 Adar II, 5771
The Media are the Messages
By
Suzanne Fields
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Conservatives love to hate Frank Rich, the New York Times columnist who wrote his last political column on Sunday. But they owe him an accolade or two for recognizing what the relentless production of opinion was doing to his writing. (Other pundits, please copy.)
"That routine can push you to have stronger opinions than you actually have, or contrived opinions about subjects you may not care deeply about, or to run roughshod over nuance to reach an unambitious conclusion," he wrote in his farewell to rage and all that. He's moving to fresh adventures at New York magazine, where he hopes to rediscover nuance, which he displayed in thoughtful abundance in "Ghost Light," his memoir about growing up in Washington, D.C.
His exit from the newspaper coincides with a report from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, which documents the radical changes going on in the industry known as media. If Rich's bite of humble pie expresses the way a good writer's curiosity can deteriorate in producing polarized outrage for print, the Pew report tells how the Internet has captured the market for news, something we've known for a while. It's not a good omen for good writing.
Old-fashioned gatekeepers who check for facts, clarity, restraint, missing attributions and misplaced commas — gatekeepers formerly known as editors — are rapidly being put out to pasture unless they can find a way to grow greener grass on the Internet. Not easy, not likely.
Flexible print journalists, however, don't have to become like the displaced monks who filed away their quills and carefully drawn manuscripts when the printing press replaced them. Pew reports that online news hires may have matched the numbers of laid-off newspapermen for the first time since newspapers began an accelerated economic descent into their own recession a decade ago. Not only are more people getting their news on the Web than from newspapers, but for the first time, more money was spent for advertising online than in newspapers.
"In a world where consumers decide what news they want and how they want to get it, the future belongs to those who understand the audience best, and who can leverage that knowledge with advertisers," says Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew project. "Increasingly that knowledge exists outside of news companies."
Audiences know what they want, and they want it quickly and on the run, like a burger and fries at the drive-thru window. Nearly half of all Americans get some form of local news on a mobile device. Although only 7 percent of Americans said they owned a portable tablet in January, that number had doubled in the previous four months, so you can imagine what it will be by the end of the year. Apple's latest iPad 2 sold out on the weekend it was launched. More than a hundred various tablets are either on sale or in development. It took Moses a long time to carve those commandments on tablets on Mount Sinai; it takes only seconds to send news to an electronic tablet.
That's partly bad but not all bad. What we're losing in quality writing — some of what goes on the Internet is little more than illiterate doggerel — we may be making up in a better-informed public. Logged-in Internet teenagers are often up to date about what's going on in the world because they read news flashes on their electronic screens. They can't escape what's happening. In that sense, social media widens the audience for what's going on; analysis and comment is only another click away.
James Fallows published "Breaking the News" 15 years ago in which he argued that the focus on scandal and the "game" of politics was driving citizens away from thoughtful consideration of public affairs. But now he's not so sure. He's reevaluating. "With each passing month, people can get more of what they want and less of what someone else thinks they should have," he writes in Atlantic magazine. The variety of news sites actually reaches out to those with a more measured interest in politics, not simply politicos who are addicted to the polarized purveyors of rage. There are more niches to explore.
No matter how we regard this change, what we need to do now is face up to the inevitability of the shift and guard against the downside, the way the new, processed media can limit the ability to think between obsession with quick hits. In the 1976 hit movie "Network," which satirized televised news as a wasteland, a dismissed anchor screams, "TV is not the truth." He tells his audience to get mad, fight back and yell at the dehumanization of the tube: "I'm a human being; my life has value." A lot of people are yelling on the Web.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here.
Suzanne Fields Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Alan Douglas
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
Marybeth Hicks
A. Barton Hinkle
David Horowitz
Jeff Jacoby
Renee James
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Ben Wattenberg
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Ed Stein
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
Tech Maven
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|