Here's a new media electronic newsletter that you should keep your eye on. Clark
*** Media Culture Headlines ***
Top stories from AlterNet's MediaCulture site for February 24, 2004:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/
MediaCulture Stories
Blogging While Anti-Black
John Lee, Africana.com
Insider gossip-fests like Gawker and Wonkette exemplify the growing
phenomenon of white hipsters adopting a casual racism.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17929
The Intern on Page One
Timothy Karr, MediaChannel.org
In a media landscape increasingly crowded with rumormongers and 'gotcha'
news sites, unsubstantiated rumors become headline stories overnight.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17927
White Man to the Rescue?
Katha Pollitt, The Nation
Defing both logic and fact, a New York Times writer accuses feminists of
ignoring the plight of their less fortunate sisters in the Third World.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17928
Damn Those Working Moms
Emily Bazelon, Women's eNews
The cover story of this month's Atlantic Monthly is proof that there is always
a spurious reason to beat up on mothers who work
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17898
Donald's Wannabe Slaves
Ana Marie Cox, In These Times
'The Apprentice,' a show that asks us to root for someone to lose his or her
job, has found an audience in the midst of a jobless economic recovery.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17891
Amish Show Goes Amiss
Brian Willoughby, Tolerance.org
Since Les Moonves wasn't allowed to make fun of rural whites, he's decided
to pick on the Amish instead.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17930
****
In the Media Mix:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/log/
William Safire: Minister of Disinformation
Whether insisting on a link between al Qaeda and Saddam or accusing the
French of supplying rocket fuel components to Iraq, Safire presents "opinion
disguised as investigative reporting."
Moyers Quits 'Now'
Bill Moyers is leaving his PBS show, "Now with Bill Moyers" after the
November elections to write a book on Lyndon Johnson.
Damn Those Hollywood Jews
The truly incendiary and therefore unspoken question at the center of the
debate over Mel Gibson's "Passion" is not "Who killed Jesus?" but
"Who controls Hollywood?"
CBS Caves to GOP Pressure, Again
Having nixed the MoveOn ad as too political, CBS has decided to resume
airing a controversial ad touting the virtues of the new Medicare drug
prescription law.
Daniel Pearl's Wife Exposes WSJ
Mariane Pear says the Wall Street Journal simply turned its back on Pearl
soon after his death, telling her bluntly, "It is your case, not ours."
Comcast's All-star Team
The lobbying team pushing for the Comcast-Disney deal includes Victoria
Clarke, the former Pentagon PR chief who came up with the brilliant idea
of "embedding" journalists during the war.
An Obscene Investigation
The congressional investigation into indecency on television is the result of
a long-running, well-organized campaign by the conservative Parents
Television Council.
Read these and other Media Mix items at:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/log/
You can find the freshest, compelling, important, and just plain fun
media-related content on AlterNet's MediaCulture content file.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/
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Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
MEDIA MIX
A first step to understanding the homeless
By PHILIP BRASOR
The mayor of Kawasaki, Takao Abe, is currently under attack from a group of city residents who don't want a planned homeless shelter put in their neighborhood. Last month, Abe rejected the residents' request for a meeting to hear his explanation of why a disused chemical factory in the Tsutsumine district was being turned into a temporary shelter for 250 people who sleep on the streets around Kawasaki Station.
The residents are worried about security and a decline in property value, but the mayor dismissed their concerns out of hand, saying that the group's request for 24-hour surveillance cameras and buses to transport the people who use the shelter through the neighborhood were both costly and an "abuse of human rights." The mayor's blunt, imperious attitude, which seems to stem from pressure to get the rubber-stamped facility built by March, has angered the residents even more.
Whether or not the group's fears would have been allayed by a calm presentation of facts about homelessness is difficult to know. Such shelters have met similar resistance throughout Japan. Another residents group in Kita Kyushu is trying to block a homeless shelter that is being planned along a route that they say will be used by children going to school.
These people are either ignorant about homelessness or just plain paranoid. In terms of safety, homeless people have much more to fear from non-homeless people than vice versa. On the same day that Abe refused to talk with the Tsutsumine residents, two teenage boys were arrested for forcing a street person in Tokyo to jump in a river last June. He drowned. The boys said they didn't care if he died because "homeless people were no good as humans." It wasn't an isolated incident.
It has been my experience that homeless people in Japan keep to themselves. Panhandling, a fairly common practice among the homeless in America, is almost non-existent in Japan. Government statistics state that more than 50 percent of Japan's estimated 30,000 homeless hold down regular jobs. As pointed out at a joint British-Japanese seminar held in Tokyo last week, people's reasons for living on the streets are often personal, meaning there are as many reasons for being homeless as there are homeless. However, the seminar also said that the main obstacles to re-entering society for Japanese homeless are structural: a welfare system that doesn't acknowledge them and a housing culture that shuts them out.
In any case, there's no proper explanation for the public's irrational fear of them, but the media feeds this misunderstanding with coverage that treats the homeless as freaks. News stories either play up their victimhood or display them as colorful characters for whom living on the street is a lifestyle choice.
On its evening news show, Nippon TV has been running an occasional series on a group of saihokutan (northernmost) homeless men living in a small tent community in Asahikawa, Hokkaido. Approaching these men as if they were a rare species of water fowl, the reporters focus on the unbelievable circumstances of their existence -- the below-zero temperatures, the scavenging for food that is often frozen, the general resourcefulness in terms of shelter and clothing. The reporters' unending exclamations of "sugoi (wow!)" become cumulatively patronizing: the homeless as a source of cheap entertainment.
It's therefore encouraging that the city of Kawasaki has adopted a documentary video about a homeless man as a "text" in its junior high schools. "Ashigara-san" follows a homeless man from the streets of Shinjuku to a group-home over the course of three years. The director, Motoharu Iida, is a volunteer who helps the homeless in the area around the West Exit of Shinjuku Station. Ashigara, a 67-year-old man who camped on the street, was a reluctant subject, but Iida found him compelling, first for his independence and later for his sense of humor. Whenever he saw him on the street, Iida made it a point to talk to him. Ashigara initially resisted, but presents of food and cigarettes and Iida's obvious concern eventually break through his carapace of distrust.
Iida shows Ashigara urinating into grates and eating out of garbage bags. He is infested with lice and suffers from horrible sores on his legs. Iida talks him into going to a hospital, and there the viewer discovers the unique bonds that form between society's bottom dwellers and the doctors, nurses, and social workers, whose job it is to keep them alive.
We see that the system does not care about someone like Ashigara, but that the individuals who operate it often do. Ashigara can receive welfare if he has a fixed address, but he opts to return to the street. Iida finds him months later sleeping under a train overpass. He is extremely weak and says he has been beaten up twice. A volunteer doctor says he must go back to the hospital and explains the bureaucratic difficulties of getting an ambulance to take him there. Ashigara is brought to the ward office, where he showers, and then walks to the hospital, where he's treated for pneumonia. "I'm sorry for being so selfish," he says to the people who help him.
The main value of "Ashigara-san" as an educational tool is in its low-key presentation. Iida is not a journalist. He doesn't delve into Ashigara's past or explain how he ended up on the street. He doesn't take society to task. He simply and unsentimentally shows us a man who, for whatever reason, no longer has a place in society but rediscovers the warmth of human contact. Ashigara is not a scary person, only his situation is.
"Ashigara-san" opens April 3 at Theater Pole-Pole Higashi Nakano in Tokyo, (03) 3771-0088.
The Japan Times: Feb. 22, 2004
A first step to understanding the homeless
By PHILIP BRASOR
The mayor of Kawasaki, Takao Abe, is currently under attack from a group of city residents who don't want a planned homeless shelter put in their neighborhood. Last month, Abe rejected the residents' request for a meeting to hear his explanation of why a disused chemical factory in the Tsutsumine district was being turned into a temporary shelter for 250 people who sleep on the streets around Kawasaki Station.
The residents are worried about security and a decline in property value, but the mayor dismissed their concerns out of hand, saying that the group's request for 24-hour surveillance cameras and buses to transport the people who use the shelter through the neighborhood were both costly and an "abuse of human rights." The mayor's blunt, imperious attitude, which seems to stem from pressure to get the rubber-stamped facility built by March, has angered the residents even more.
Whether or not the group's fears would have been allayed by a calm presentation of facts about homelessness is difficult to know. Such shelters have met similar resistance throughout Japan. Another residents group in Kita Kyushu is trying to block a homeless shelter that is being planned along a route that they say will be used by children going to school.
These people are either ignorant about homelessness or just plain paranoid. In terms of safety, homeless people have much more to fear from non-homeless people than vice versa. On the same day that Abe refused to talk with the Tsutsumine residents, two teenage boys were arrested for forcing a street person in Tokyo to jump in a river last June. He drowned. The boys said they didn't care if he died because "homeless people were no good as humans." It wasn't an isolated incident.
It has been my experience that homeless people in Japan keep to themselves. Panhandling, a fairly common practice among the homeless in America, is almost non-existent in Japan. Government statistics state that more than 50 percent of Japan's estimated 30,000 homeless hold down regular jobs. As pointed out at a joint British-Japanese seminar held in Tokyo last week, people's reasons for living on the streets are often personal, meaning there are as many reasons for being homeless as there are homeless. However, the seminar also said that the main obstacles to re-entering society for Japanese homeless are structural: a welfare system that doesn't acknowledge them and a housing culture that shuts them out.
In any case, there's no proper explanation for the public's irrational fear of them, but the media feeds this misunderstanding with coverage that treats the homeless as freaks. News stories either play up their victimhood or display them as colorful characters for whom living on the street is a lifestyle choice.
On its evening news show, Nippon TV has been running an occasional series on a group of saihokutan (northernmost) homeless men living in a small tent community in Asahikawa, Hokkaido. Approaching these men as if they were a rare species of water fowl, the reporters focus on the unbelievable circumstances of their existence -- the below-zero temperatures, the scavenging for food that is often frozen, the general resourcefulness in terms of shelter and clothing. The reporters' unending exclamations of "sugoi (wow!)" become cumulatively patronizing: the homeless as a source of cheap entertainment.
It's therefore encouraging that the city of Kawasaki has adopted a documentary video about a homeless man as a "text" in its junior high schools. "Ashigara-san" follows a homeless man from the streets of Shinjuku to a group-home over the course of three years. The director, Motoharu Iida, is a volunteer who helps the homeless in the area around the West Exit of Shinjuku Station. Ashigara, a 67-year-old man who camped on the street, was a reluctant subject, but Iida found him compelling, first for his independence and later for his sense of humor. Whenever he saw him on the street, Iida made it a point to talk to him. Ashigara initially resisted, but presents of food and cigarettes and Iida's obvious concern eventually break through his carapace of distrust.
Iida shows Ashigara urinating into grates and eating out of garbage bags. He is infested with lice and suffers from horrible sores on his legs. Iida talks him into going to a hospital, and there the viewer discovers the unique bonds that form between society's bottom dwellers and the doctors, nurses, and social workers, whose job it is to keep them alive.
We see that the system does not care about someone like Ashigara, but that the individuals who operate it often do. Ashigara can receive welfare if he has a fixed address, but he opts to return to the street. Iida finds him months later sleeping under a train overpass. He is extremely weak and says he has been beaten up twice. A volunteer doctor says he must go back to the hospital and explains the bureaucratic difficulties of getting an ambulance to take him there. Ashigara is brought to the ward office, where he showers, and then walks to the hospital, where he's treated for pneumonia. "I'm sorry for being so selfish," he says to the people who help him.
The main value of "Ashigara-san" as an educational tool is in its low-key presentation. Iida is not a journalist. He doesn't delve into Ashigara's past or explain how he ended up on the street. He doesn't take society to task. He simply and unsentimentally shows us a man who, for whatever reason, no longer has a place in society but rediscovers the warmth of human contact. Ashigara is not a scary person, only his situation is.
"Ashigara-san" opens April 3 at Theater Pole-Pole Higashi Nakano in Tokyo, (03) 3771-0088.
The Japan Times: Feb. 22, 2004
Japan gives in to EU's pressure on press clubs
BRUSSELS (Kyodo) Japan and the European Union said Friday they have agreed that Japan will work to improve its press club system to provide better access for foreign media to government information.
Japan will consider asking its public offices to allow foreign journalists registered with the Foreign Ministry to attend their news conferences, according to officials who attended the talks in Brussels.
Makita Shimokawa, director of the Foreign Ministry's First International Economic Affairs Division, told a news conference that the ministry and the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association are continuing negotiations on opening access also at news conferences hosted by the press clubs.
In response, Seamus Gillespie, who is in charge of Japan affairs in the European Commission's External Relations Directorate General, described the move as a constructive approach.
In October, the EU urged Japan to abolish its "kisha club" system. The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association responded in December, saying the proposal was based on "misunderstanding, cultural biases and misconception of facts."
The EU believes the system is used to exclude foreign correspondents from access to news in Japan. The Japanese newspaper association says most press clubs are open to the foreign media.
The Japan Times: Feb. 22, 2004
(C) All rights reserved
BRUSSELS (Kyodo) Japan and the European Union said Friday they have agreed that Japan will work to improve its press club system to provide better access for foreign media to government information.
Japan will consider asking its public offices to allow foreign journalists registered with the Foreign Ministry to attend their news conferences, according to officials who attended the talks in Brussels.
Makita Shimokawa, director of the Foreign Ministry's First International Economic Affairs Division, told a news conference that the ministry and the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association are continuing negotiations on opening access also at news conferences hosted by the press clubs.
In response, Seamus Gillespie, who is in charge of Japan affairs in the European Commission's External Relations Directorate General, described the move as a constructive approach.
In October, the EU urged Japan to abolish its "kisha club" system. The Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association responded in December, saying the proposal was based on "misunderstanding, cultural biases and misconception of facts."
The EU believes the system is used to exclude foreign correspondents from access to news in Japan. The Japanese newspaper association says most press clubs are open to the foreign media.
The Japan Times: Feb. 22, 2004
(C) All rights reserved
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