By next week, cable giant Comcast is expected to announce a deal to buy NBC-Universal, the biggest proposed media merger in recent memory. Comcast, the largest cable company and the No. 1 Internet service provider in the nation, would take over the NBC empire: a television network, Universal...

He called Van Jones a "radical communist" and "revolutionary." Using the same incendiary language of Joe McCarthy 55 years ago, Glenn Beck brought down one of our nation's most visionary, passionate, and principled young leaders.

Watch the video:

Looking back, it's hard to believe that Father Charles Coughlin's hate speeches were broadcast into millions of homes during the 1930s. Coughlin's anti-Semitic rants incited prejudice and violence. Now, in the Internet age, it seems positively antiquated that one person could have such a powerful soapbox to engage in...

On Monday, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post and CNN criticized veteran newsman Dan Rather for his recent call for a White House commission on the future of journalism and public media.

It was a misguided criticism of Mr. Rather, who has called for the commission as...

Last month, the nation's No.2 cable company Time Warner Cable announced plans to test a new billing system known as "metering" that charges Internet customers depending on how much they download. Customers who exceed their limit--say, by viewing online videos--would face steep penalties on top of their subscription rate.

Time...

This week, Wolf Blitzer interviewed Senator Orin Hatch (R-UT). I watched dumbfounded as Hatch lied, and Blitzer obediently chose not to challenge the Senator. It's the same lapdog reporting that enabled Bush & Co. to marshal public support for war in Iraq, to torture and spy, and allows politicians to...

On Monday night, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post reported that President-elect Barack Obama will nominate his longtime friend and Harvard Law classmate Julius Genachowski to head the Federal Communications Commission. The new chairman is one of the chief architects of the online campaign that proved...

On Thursday, an alliance of more than 100 groups, unions, musicians, bloggers and media and technology leaders sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama calling on his administration to appoint leaders who will reform the media and protect the open Internet.

Along the campaign trail, in recent speeches,...

Ask just about any public interest advocate concerned about the dismal state of media and journalism, and they will tell you that Obama's media policy platform is excellent: the beginning of what could be the most public interest friendly administration in presidential history. Part of this optimism stems from Obama's...

If you are like me, the pundits, and 99.9% of the American public, you really don't know much about economics. And despite Monday's refreshing moment of rebellion in the Congress, in all likelihood the House and Senate will pass a modified version of the $700 billion handout this week to...

Wednesday night's Republican convention was another page out of the GOP/Karl Rove playbook that has brought them victory for decades. Here's an excerpt:

1) Don't talk about your party's disastrous policies and the results: our failing economy, declining national security and domestic infrastructure. Instead, focus on the "toughness" and...

On Wednesday evening, some 100 US veterans gathered outside the Democratic convention to read a letter demanding "three points of unity": an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, full benefits and health care for all returning veterans, and reparations to the people of Iraq. The veterans were joined...

Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell increasingly sounds like a man stranded on a desert island, willing to say anything to get a ride back to shore.

Yesterday, Commissioner McDowell stooped to a new low in a talk with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. He was invited to...

Rupert Murdoch's favorite megalomaniac Bill O'Reilly sent a crew to Minneapolis this weekend to stalk journalists Bill Moyers and Dan Rather. This probably doesn't surprise you. And that's exactly why Moyers and Rather were in Minneapolis. They were speaking at the National Conference for Media Reform, a gathering of 3,500...

You probably didn't hear about the House voting to ban Pentagon propaganda last Thursday -- since the television networks have once again conveniently failed to cover the story.

But in a surprise move, a 2009 defense policy bill passed with an amendment, sponsored by Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), that...

Thursday night, the Senate cast a near-unanimous vote to reverse the Federal Communication Commission's December 2007 decision to let media companies own both a major TV or radio station and a major daily newspaper in the same city.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who introduced the rarely used "resolution...

Hard-hitting journalism is nearing extinction on television, and the Federal Communications Commission just threw another shovelful of dirt on its grave when it recently ruled that Rupert Murdoch's broadcast of TMZ and Pat Robertson's 700 Club meet the test for "a bona fide newscast." Bona fide newscast? You tell...

The New York Times publishes an exposé on the hidden ties between media military analysts and the Pentagon that most likely violate federal "covert propaganda" laws.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) calls for an investigation of the propaganda purveyors, especially those with business ties to the Pentagon.

Last week, it was a mudslinging debate hosted by ABC. This week, it's revelations of pro-war propaganda on nearly every major television news outlet.

The quest for quality journalism and for the truth about the fast sell on the Iraq war just hit a new low. And today,...

Yesterday, the New York Times exposed a secret Pentagon effort to spread favorable views of the war by recruiting and planting military analysts in the nation's news media.

These pundits became fixtures of war coverage on most major network, cable, radio and print news outlets without disclosing their...