John W. Delicath is director of Media Matters Action Network, a progressive research and information center dedicated to, among other things, expanding and empowering progressive voices in the media. He is a communications expert with more than 15 years experience in academia, government, and the non-profit sector. He is co-editor of Communication and Public Participation in Environmental Decision Making (SUNY Press). He was previously a Deputy Editorial Director for Media Matters for America. Prior to coming to Media Matters, he served as a senior communications analyst in the Natural Resources and Environment division of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in communication studies from the University of Louisville and the University of Georgia, respectively, and completed course work for his Ph.D. at the University of Iowa. He has held teaching positions at Allegheny College, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Cincinnati, where he taught courses in rhetoric, political communication, and media studies, including courses that examined media coverage of social movements, environmental issues, and the Iraq war.

Blog Entries by John W. Delicath

Guns, Lies, and Videotape

Posted April 14, 2009 | 02:34 PM (EST)


Alan Gottlieb, the founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, appeared on cable news twice last week to discuss President Obama's plans to "take away everybody's guns." Given the tone of the tough questioning from CNN's Rick Sanchez and MSNBC's David Shuster, Gottlieb may very well have been invited on...

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Irresponsible Vitriol in the Media

40 Comments | Posted April 1, 2009 | 12:29 PM (EST)


The most striking feature of the 2008 election may have been the nature and harshness of the attacks directed at now-President Barack Obama. Though they came from many sources, arrived through a variety of media, and covered a wide range of subjects, these attacks followed three broad themes: Obama...

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Fox Nation: New Website Delivers Just What You'd Expect

18 Comments | Posted March 30, 2009 | 01:32 PM (EST)


Today marks the launch of FOX Nation, an opinion and news site that was immediately heralded at FoxNews.com, where Grover Norquist wrote: "I believe that Fox Nation has the potential to do to the Internet what FOX News did to cable television. That is, be a disruptive, transformative-but...

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Beyond Stem Cells and Global Warming: Media Ignore Bush Administration's Widespread Interference with Science

6 Comments | Posted March 18, 2009 | 11:35 AM (EST)


The fact that the Bush administration routinely and repeatedly allowed politics to trump science in the policy-making process is well-known and extensively documented. Yet, the media continue to act otherwise.

During coverage of President Barack Obama's executive order on stem cell research and his presidential...

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NYT's Tierney Concerned About Use of Science -- In the Obama Administration

5 Comments | Posted March 9, 2009 | 05:47 PM (EST)


Monday, President Obama issued a memorandum ordering the Office of Science and Technology Policy to, in Obama's words, "develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision making." While many will no doubt see the memorandum as proof of Obama's commitment to value science, others, such as...

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Media Meltdown: How the Press Failed the Public in Covering the Stimulus Debate

13 Comments | Posted February 20, 2009 | 05:19 PM (EST)


There's a reason President Barack Obama left Washington, D.C. to speak directly with the American people about his economic recovery package, and it probably has something to do with the media's reporting on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In a public statement about media coverage of the bill,...

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Media Snow Job: Weather Events Used to Cast Doubt on Reality of Climate Change

222 Comments | Posted February 13, 2009 | 04:00 PM (EST)


To hear certain cable news figures tell it, the existence of winter weather raises doubts about the reality of global climate change. Can the Earth's climate really be getting warmer if it's still snowing, they ask. Such a simplistic non sequitur might be funny were it not for the melting...

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