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Outfoxed: New Documentary Charges Fox News Tailored Coverage
to Back Bush
Robert Fisk On Sovereignty, Martial Law, and Continuing Violence
in the New Iraq
"The Greatest Poet of the 20th Century In Any Language"
- Celebrating Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda
Outfoxed: New Documentary Charges Fox News Tailored
Coverage to Back Bush
We take a look at a new documentary: "Outfoxed: Rupert
Murdoch's War on Journalism," that accuses the Fox News
Channel of tailoring its coverage to back President Bush.
We play excerpts of the documentary and speak with its producer
and director, Robert Greenwald as well as Larry Johnson a
former CIA agent and former Fox News contributor.
We take a look at a new documentary titled "Outfoxed:
Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," that accuses the
Fox News Channel of tailoring its coverage to back President
Bush.
The documentary, which premiered this week in New York City,
features memos written by Fox executives and interviews with
former Fox correspondents and producers who talk about how
upper management pressured reporters to cover news with a
conservative bias. The film also says a study of guests on
Fox's news and opinion shows over a 25-week period in 2003
showed that Republicans appeared five times more often than
Democrats.
The film's producer and director, Robert Greenwald, says
he intentionally did not seek Fox's side. Greenwald told reporters:
"Fox News is on the air 24 hours a day, seven days a
week. My little film is hardly going to address that imbalance.
This really is David vs. Goliath."
- Larry Johnson, former CIA agent and former Fox News contributor.
He is featured in Robert Greenwald's documentary "Outfoxed."
Robert Fisk On Sovereignty, Martial Law, and Continuing
Violence in the New Iraq
We go to Baghdad to speak with Robert Fisk, Chief Middle
East correspondent for the London Independent, about the continuing
violence in Iraq, house raids and phone tapping, and the unelected
prime minister Iyad Allawi. [includes transcript]
The new Iraq is in chaos. Since the so-called transfer of
sovereignty on June 28th, over 30 people have been killed.
This week alone, 22 people died in two car bombs in Baghdad.
Now, the unelected Interim Prime Minister Allawi says he is
going to create a new secret police force raising alarms among
Iraqis who had suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein's secret
police.
The violence is continuing unabated despite the comments
from the U.S. and its allies in the invasion. After Thursday's
recent bombing, the London Independent's Middle East correspondent
Robert Fisk writes:
"At the al-Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad yesterday morning,
there was blood on the walls, blood on the floor, blood on
the doctors, blood on the stretchers. In the dangerous oven
of Baghdad, 10 more lives had just ended. So what was it Tony
Blair said in the Commons yesterday afternoon? "We are
not killing civilians in Iraq; terrorists are killing civilians
in Iraq." So that's all right then. Question: Are Baghdad
and London on the same planet?"
- Robert Fisk, chief Middle East correspondent for the
London Independent.
"The Greatest Poet of the 20th Century In Any
Language" - Celebrating Chilean Poet Pablo Neruda
Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda would have
turned 100 years old this week. We speak with poet and professor
Martin Espada who teaches creative writing, Latino poetry,
and the work of Pablo Neruda. He recently returned from Chile
where he was invited to participate in the celebration of
the Neruda centenary. [includes transcript]
Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda would have turned
100 years old this week. Fellow Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel
Garcia Marquez called Pablo Neruda the "greatest poet
of the 20th century -- in any language." This week, many
Chilean towns and cities have been staging poetry readings
to mark Neruda's centenary.
Born the son of a railway worker, Neruda began writing poetry
when he was 14 years old and didn't stop until his death in
1973.
A long-standing Communist Party supporter, he died less than
two weeks after Gen Augusto Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende's
government in a U.S.-backed coup. His funeral became the first
public show of opposition to Chile's military rulers and his
work was banned until 1990 under the Pinochet regime.
In his Memoirs, Neruda writes: "Poetry is a deep inner
calling in man; from it came liturgy, the psalms, and also
the content of religions. The poet confronted nature's phenomena
and in the early ages called himself a priest, to safeguard
his vocation...Today's social poet is still a member of the
earliest order of priests. In the old days he made his pact
with the darkness, and now he must interpret the light."
- Martin Espada, poet and professor at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst where he teaches creative writing,
Latino poetry, and the work of Pablo Neruda. Sandra Cisneros
calls Espada the "Pablo Neruda of North American authors."
Others have called him "The Latino Poet of his Generation."
He is the winner of the American Book Award, among other
honors. He is the Poet Laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts.
He recently returned from Chile where he was invited to
participate in the celebration of the Neruda centenary.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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