We used to expect reporters and editors to place events in their proper context. Post-O.J., post-Diana, and soon (we hope) post-Monica, perhaps it’s time to ask: What happened to news judgment?
Books, Arts and Culture
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Recasting the Stones
In our multicultural society, traditional monuments may no longer possess the unifying power they once did. Some projects by contemporary artists suggest a way around this conundrum.
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If Wishing Only Made it So
Two recent movies, Patch Adams and Life Is Beautiful, each claim to reveal the relation between fantasy and politics. One succeeds magnificently; the other is a fraud.
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The Trouble With Teletubbies
Jerry Falwell was right: the Teletubbies are insidious, but not because they’re insinuating dubious ideas into the minds of one-year olds. The program is the culmination of PBS’s long drift toward commercialization.
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Can TV Improve Us?
We’ve heard it for years: television is bad for us. Maybe instead of fighting against it, we should be trying to make it better. Some public health groups have had surprising success in using television for positive ends.
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Art: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Account Executive
Economic impact studies can demonstrate a return on public investments in the arts. This is a handy tool for arts advocates, but also a dangerous one that reduces art to commercial calculus.
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Essay: Look at Me! Leave Me Alone!
Which is stronger, the craving for publicity or the desire for privacy? The Truman Show demonstrates how tightly married these impulses are.
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How Low Can You Go?
YOUR NAME HERE As public broadcasting has long shown, there is a thin line between philanthropy and advertising that is well on its way to being completely erased. Consider the recent proliferation of corporate logos on endowed professorships, as reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Stanford has a Yahoo! chair of information systems technology; […]
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The Myth of the Supermayor
A new breed of supermayor is supposed to be revitalizing the nation’s cities. So let’s visit the city and mayor often held up these days as a model for America.
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Storylines: Tough Chat
A few years ago, people who thought liberals were too squeamish in public debate wondered how they could make it in the aggressive and strident forum of talk radio. [See Tom DeVries, “We’ll Talk About That: Can Liberals Do Radio?“ TAP, March-April 1996.] Today the same question has come up about another rough-and-tumble medium: political […]