US Foreign policy has long been more about the evocative vocabulary used to describe it than the geopolitical reality it is meant to address. The vocabulary politicians and the media use to define foreign policy belongs to a tissue of artificially generated illusions that serve not so much to...
In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Robert S. Boynton, director of the Literary Reportage program at New York University. Being a journalist is not an easy job. It has never been seen as an effortless and unproblematic profession. Journalists go to extreme lengths to report...
Brazilian media giant Grupo RBS embraced the digital age and looked for opportunities to thrive, according to this op-ed. How does a traditional media company stay relevant in the digital age? For Grupo RBS, a Brazilian media conglomerate that owns newspapers and radio and TV stations, the...
Belief can be the “community organizer” for people who have no need to meet. For some curious reason, undoubtedly linked to what could be called the growing existential crisis around the notion of truth in the media, certain news outlets have taken to giving serious play to the outlandish...
Media in Japan focuses heavily on domestic affairs, affecting the country's global outlook. Our world is becoming increasingly interconnected in a multitude of ways, and advances in information and communication technologies have made the gathering and dissemination of information at a global...
It is incumbent on our educational systems to make an effort to help the young become more discerning. During this interregnum between the administrations of the two American presidents, fake news has become the biggest and most consistent story in the media. The screenwriters of this unfolding...
Donald Trump is showing the next phase of this strategy: pure theater. Recently, President Barack Obama pointed out that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Grand Old Party (GOP) figured out something very important during the Obama presidency: Most Americans either don’t know or...
With the decay of codes of media ethics we need to be smarter than ever when choosing information we are willing to trust. Donald Trump’s no-holds-barred electoral campaign, punctuated by pyrotechnic rally performances, used the media to generate waves of shock, ridicule and admiration...
The latest attacks on journalists and news organizations by corrupt populists are contributing to a global rollback of fundamental rights. Imagine that Donald Trump wins the presidency. Then, as he has done throughout his career, he goes after his enemies. He purges the Republican Party of...
The Greek government has been taking steps that curb the country's freedom of the press. While outside media coverage of Greece this summer has focused on the migrants stranded at the gates of Europe, the far-left Syriza party continues to juggle the state’s astronomical debt and...
If the rich and powerful get a voice and the rest of us do not, which direction is the nation likely to head in? In spite of Bernie Sanders’ wins in Indiana and West Virginia, Hillary Clinton will almost certainly be the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. This being the case, it may...
We need a media that covers power, not covers for power. What is the role of the media? According to Noam Chomsky, an obstinate, cantankerous press is an essential prerequisite for the people’s right to know. Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now!, thinks of the media as a big kitchen table where...
Public access to information is being controlled by those who seek to profit from our collective ignorance. It is reasonable to ask how Americans have permitted their nation’s march to self-proclaimed greatness to be so retarded by its present collective march to self-induced ignorance. With...
Iraq, Syria and the Philippines are the most dangerous countries for journalists. In June 2015, a journalist was burned to death in India for reporting on police corruption. But just how bad is the situation in other countries, if India isn’t the worst place to be a journalist? According to...
