Apple's Steve Jobs Praised Indy Media

In his 2005 commencement speech at Stanford, Steve Jobs praised The Whole Earth Catalog, an independent publication that had a big influence on him.

Obama Appoints Corporate Lobbyist to Head the FCC

The Federal Communications Commission is supposed to protect the public interest by regulating the media and telecommunications industries, but Obama has just appointed a former top lobbyist for the cable TV and cell phone industries as his FCC chair. Thank you, Mr. President, for change we can believe in.

Boston Bombing/ Media Meltdown

Memo to Journalism Students: This is what you should NOT do.  (H/t Karly)   Here's Mother Jones doing what it does very well: correcting mainstream media errors. (H/t Megan)

Rush to Misjudgement on Boston Marathon Story

Democracy Now! reports.

Public Access TV Channels . . .

...have offered diverse and local voices, launched careers, and led to Saturday Night Live spoofs from Mike Myers -- such as "Wayne's World" and "Coffee Talk with Linda Richman."

Why don't we have independent public TV like this in US?

Weeks before the Iraq invasion, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman and skeptical British citizens literally cross-examined Prime Minister Tony Blair about evidence/reasons/legality behind the invasion -- an interview whose transcript and Blair's comments became part of Britain's official Iraq inquiry in 2011. (Here's another tough Paxman interview of Blair . . . having nothing to do with Iraq.)

In our country, bullying from politicians + lack of insulated funding = embarrassing timidity at so-called "public television"...as evidenced by PBS surgically removing Tina Fey's comedic swipes at Sarah Palin from a broadcast in November 2010.

Country by country comparisons of spending on public broadcasting here. 

My column on media and militarism . . .

. . . generated nearly 1,000 comments on Huffington Post and a positive tweet from perhaps the greatest female tennis player ever.