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July 2012
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‘The Syrian opposition: who’s doing the talking?’, Charlie Skelton in Guardian

Most of the western news media have been virtually celebrating the assassination of three senior Syrian officials, including the Defence Minister, by terrorists; there are the usual mild disapprovals of such methods in feel-good, exculpatory editorials. Here Charlie Skelton, a sceptical journalist, noting that ‘asking questions doesn’t make you a cheerleader for Assad’, discovers that ‘the media have been too passive when it comes to Syrian opposition sources, without scrutinising their backgrounds and their political connections. Time for a closer look …’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/12/syrian-opposition-doing-the-talking

(Courtesy: Susan Ram)

By NR, on July 20th, 2012

Media criticism: ‘The New York Times Misses the Mark on Inequality, Marriage’, Kathy Pollitt in The Nation

The New York Times has taken to front-paging ‘human interest’ feature stories with some kind of moral. Here Kathy Pollitt offers a well-argued and robust critique of the assumptions behind a story featuring the lives of two women, Jessica Schairer and Chris Faulkner, ‘two white women from conventional church-going Midwestern middle-class families whose life trajectory looked much the same when they graduated high school and set out for college…Yes, yes, is the takeaway: inequality is increasing and good jobs are hard to find, but “what most separates” the two women “is not the impact of globalization on their wages but a 6-foot-8-inch man named Kevin.”’

http://www.thenation.com/blog/168932/new-york-times-misses-mark-inequality-marriage?rel=emailNation#

Two Classes, Divided by ‘I Do’: New York Times, July 14, 2012:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/two-classes-in-america-divided-by-i-do.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Child Trends, a Washington research group:

http://www.childtrends.org/index.cfm

http://www.childtrends.org/_pressrelease_page.cfm?LID=8A86AB63-CC76-4CF7-BFA7488368ED988D

By NR, on July 20th, 2012

Noam Chomsky on ‘The Shredding of Our Fundamental Rights’

Noam Chomsky reflects on ‘the shredding before our very eyes’ of the Magna Carta, the Great Charter of liberties and rights, which dates back to 1215 — and its companion Charter of the Forest, which was supposed to protect the commons against external power:

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/12498-noam-chomsky-the-shredding-of-our-fundamental-rights

By NR, on July 20th, 2012