For the new year, let's resolve: Don't defend Democrats when they don't deserve defending. And that certainly includes President Obama.

Let's further resolve: Put principles above party and never lose our voice on human rights and social justice.

When we mute ourselves as a Democratic president pursues corporatist...

With President Obama pushing a huge troop escalation in Afghanistan, history may well repeat itself with a vengeance. And it's not just the apt comparison to LBJ, who destroyed his presidency on the battlefields of Vietnam with an escalation that delivered power to Nixon and the GOP.

With Rush Limbaugh trying to become co-owner of the St. Louis Rams, his racially divisive commentary over the last 20 years -- some as fresh as last month -- is surfacing. When I studied Limbaugh while heading the media watch group FAIR, colleague Steve Rendall and I...

No matter what the facts are, some liberal activists and leaders persist in seeing President Obama as a principled progressive reformer who lives and breathes the campaign rhetoric about "change you can believe in."

When he compromises, it's not Obama's fault -- it's the opposition. Retreat is never a sell-out...

How different would the Woodstock Festival have been if we'd had today's communications technologies 40 years ago? It's hard to imagine -- and not because "if you remember the '60s, you weren't there!" I was there.

I was 17, stumbling around Yasgur's farm and continually losing my buddy amid...

I've started deleting them as spam.

I'm not talking about the enlarge-your-penis emails or "You've Won the Lottery" notices.

I'm talking about the increasingly-urgent emails coming for weeks from liberal Netroots groups calling for a "public option" for health care -- a government insurance plan citizens could choose...

I learned long ago, while working at the media watch group FAIR, to be wary of New York Times headlines.

Hearing news that President Obama has a shortlist of candidates to replace David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court, I dug up a front-page New York Times Week in...

This short speech was made by Jeremy Stone at Tuesday's inaugural ceremony of the Izzy Awards for independent media -- named after legendary journalist I.F. "Izzy" Stone. Blogger Glenn Greenwald and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! shared the award presented by Ithaca College's Park Center for Independent Media, which...

For four months beginning in May 2001, major U.S. media outlets, including all three cable news channels, took the American public for a ride -- perpetrating a hoax that a married congressman was somehow involved in the disappearance of a female intern.

As I witnessed the farce from inside...

I have a plan to get NBC out of last place in the ratings. I'm promising blockbuster audience and international buzz. As a once disgruntled ex-employee, I now just want to be positive and help NBC, which needs all the free advice it can get.

Here's my idea: A series...

Co-authored by fellow judge Norman Solomon

Now in their seventeenth year, the P.U.-litzer Prizes recognize some of the nation's stinkiest media performances. As the judges for these annual awards, we do our best to identify the most deserving recipients of this unwelcome plaudit.

And now, the P.U.-litzers Prizes for 2008:

Independent media outlets that contributed so mightily to the stunning election result are about to be tested as to their "independence." With Democrats in control, will these outlets be guided by principle or just partisanship? Will they speak truth to power and expose corruption and injustice over the long haul...

Of all the factors contributing to Obama's victory -- luck, economic crisis, Bush, Palin -- a major factor is now so second-nature to us that we may overlook its transformative impact since just four years ago: the Internet and the progressive online boom.

First off, without its record-smashing Internet...

The irrepressible Louis "Studs" Terkel was many things - oral historian, radio and TV host, actor, activist, Bronx-born icon of Chicago, the "great listener" who was hard of hearing, Pulitzer Prize-winner. But most of all he was an inspiration. He inspired every younger activist or independent journalist who ever met...

As director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, I invited Talking Points Memo blogger/publisher Josh Marshall to keynote our inaugural symposium that convened two dozen media innovators and leaders in mid-September. Marshall won this year's Polk Award in legal reporting for coverage of the...

The headline atop Saturday's op-ed page was a hallowed standby for the New York Times: "Americans Move to the Middle." Assembled by Times"visual columnist" Charles Blow, the text of the column was dwarfed by 15 graphs tracking recent movement in American public opinion, based on Gallup polls. There was one...

There was real emotion in his voice when ABC News anchor Charles Gibson used Friday night's newscast to stand up for little-guy McCain against online-fundraising powerhouse Barack Obama. By opting out of public financing, Gibson intoned, the Democrat could obtain "two times, three times, four times, as much money as...

For days, the death of a famous journalist has preoccupied many. Including me. For it was nineteen years ago this week that I.F. (Izzy) Stone died. The legendary blogger was 81.

Confused? You say he died years before web blogs were invented?

Well, yeah, but when I think...

No sooner had Bush's ex-press secretary (now author) Scott McClellan accused President Bush and his former collaborators of misleading our country into Iraq than the squeals of protest turned into a mighty roar.

I'm not talking about the vitriol directed at him by former White House colleagues like Karl...

In the fall of 2002, week after week, I argued vigorously against invading Iraq in debates televised on MSNBC. I used every possible argument that might sway mainstream viewers -- no real threat, cost, instability. But as the war neared, my debates were terminated.

In my 2006 book