Media Control & Literacy

September 30, 2005: Weapons of Mass Deception   There were two wars going on in Iraq. One was fought with armies of soldiers, bombs, and a fearsome military force. The other was fought alongside it with cameras, satellites, armies of journalists, and propaganda techniques. One war was rationalized as an effort to find and disarm WMDs -- Weapons of Mass Destruction; the other was carried out by even more powerful WMDs -- Weapons of Mass Deception. The TV networks in America considered their non-stop coverage their finest hour, celebrating the use of embedded journalists and new technologies that permitted viewers to see a war up close for the first time. But people in different countries saw different wars. Why? Weapons of Mass Deception explores this story with the findings of a gutsy former network journalist and media insider-turned-outsider, Danny Schechter, “The News Dissector”, who is one of America's most prolific media critics. (100 minutes; 2004.)

2004 Film Series

Nov 8, 2004: War feels like War - This film documents the lives of reporters and photographers who circumvent military media control to get access to the real Iraq War. As the invading armies sweep into the country, some of the journalists in Kuwait decide to travel in their wake, risking their lives to discover the true impact of war on civilians.  60 mins,  2004

Dana Hull, Reporter at San Jose Mercury News and an un-embedded journalist in Iraq will lead the discussion.

Ellliot Margolies, Executive Producer of the MidPeninsula Community Media Center will lead a discussion.

January 13, 2004: Fear and Favor in the Newsroom
In the public's eye, reporters will do anything for a story. Narrated by Studs Terkel, the film akes viewers behind the scenes to shatter this myth and shows for the first time on film how ownership of the press by a small corporate elite constricts the free flow of ideas and information upon which our democracy depends.  Journalists, including four Pulitzer Prize winners, from The New York Times, NBC, PBS and other respected news organizations reveal how they have been censored, squelched or fired for aggressively reporting on the wealthy and the powerful.  60 min, 1997

January 20, 2004: Beyond Good and Evil
The belief that “good triumphs over evil” resonates deeply in our psyche through religious, cultural, and political discourses. It is also a common theme in the entertainment media where the struggle between good and evil is frequently resolved through violence. The potential negative impact of media violence on children has long been a public concern. It is even more troubling when U.S. military violence, both in the news and in the entertainment, is often glorified as heroic and patriotic.  Full of poignant footage and moving responses from children, the video examines how the "good and evil" rhetoric, in both the entertainment and the news media, has helped children dehumanize "enemies," justify their killing and see the suffering of innocent civilians as necessary sacrifice. 39 min, 2003

January 27, 2004: Toxic Sludge is Good For You
While advertising is the visible component of the corporate system, perhaps even more important and pervasive is its invisible partner, the public relations industry. This video illuminates this hidden sphere of our culture and examines the way in which the management of "the public mind" has become central to how our democracy is controlled by political and economic elites.  The film illustrates how much of what we think of as independent, unbiased news and information has its origins in the boardrooms of the public relations companies. 45 min, 2002

February 3, 2004: Constructing Public Opinion
The media regularly use public opinion polls in their reporting of important news stories. But how exactly do they report them and to what end? In this insightful and accessible interview, Professor Justin Lewis demonstrates the way in which polling data are themselves used by the media to not just reflect what Americans think but instead to construct public opinion itself.  Addressing this vital issue, the film provides a new way to think about the relationship between politics, media and the public.   32 min, 2001

Also on Feb. 3, 2004: Rich Media, Poor Democracy
If a key indicator of the health of a democracy is the state of its journalism, the United States is in deep trouble. In Rich Media, Poor Democracy, Robert McChesney lays the blame for this state of affairs squarely at the doors of the corporate boardrooms of big media, which far from delivering on their promises of more choice and more diversity, have organized a system characterized by a lack of competition, homogenization of opinion and formulaic programming. The video connects the decline of journalism to the profit motive of the mega-corporations that own the media and questions how media policy decisions are made, examines the way our media system affects news coverage, and offers suggestions for reclaiming our media. 30 min, 2003

February 10, 2004: Unprecedented: the 2000 Presidential Election
This is the riveting story about the battle for the Presidency in Florida and the undermining of democracy in America. What emerges is a disturbing picture of an election marred by suspicious irregularities, electoral injustices, and sinister voter purges in a state governed by the winning candidate's brother.   50 min, 2003

February 17, 2004: 30 Second Democracy
Explores the disturbing relationship between political parties and the advertising industry during election campaigns. Using television advertising, techniques perfected to sell commercial products are applied to political candidates, turning elections into marketing exercises and voting into another consumer choice. Do we elect leaders or buy them?  30 Second Democracy is unique among explorations of this theme, providing a comparative history of political television advertising in the U.S., Britain and Canada looking at how each of these countries has taken widely differing approaches to regulating political advertising on television, with very different results.  51 min, 1996

February 24, 2004: Myth of Liberal Media
Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky demolish one of the central tenets of our political culture, the idea of the "liberal media." Instead, utilizing a systematic model based on massive empirical research, they reveal the manner in which the news media are subordinated to corporate and conservative interests so that their function can only be described as that of "elite propaganda." "If you want to understand the way a system works, you look at its institutional structure. How it is organized, how it is controlled, how it is funded." -Noam Chomsky, 60 min, 1997

March 2, 2004: Project Censored: Is the Press Really Free?
A documentary about one of the country's most respected media watchdogs: Sonoma State University's Project Censored. It exposes the existence and frequency of censorship in today's mainstream news media. It includes in-depth reports on five of the project's yearly "top ten" stories of the recent past. It investigates many of the reasons why these important news stories have been ignored by the press. And, it reveals the frightening circumstances that befall journalists who investigate the wrong stories. The film features an impressive list of media experts who discuss the various reasons behind censorship, including how corporate pressures shape news delivery, how P.R. departments and government agencies pipeline stories to the media, and how consolidation of news sources has eliminated a diversity of viewpoints in news delivery. 60 min, 2001

March 9, 2004: KPFA on the Air
A lively documentary providing food for thought about the potential for alternative visions of media and their relationship to community. This video documents the growth of KPFA from the brainstorm of some WWII pacifists to a rare and dynamic voice for cultural and political pluralism through the 1950s, and as a voice for the social movements of the 1960s. 60 min, 2000