Will ‘Face the Nation’ become ‘Face the World’?

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors is considering asking commercial broadcasters to donate their news programming to Voice of America and other international broadcasters. That was the word from Dana Perino, a new member of the BBG board. "Everyone agrees we should look into this," she said. "How do we repurpose things that we could acquire?" Perino indicated a starting point would be the Sunday morning interview programs – ABC's "This Week," CBS' "Face the Nation", NBC's "Meet the Press" and "Fox News Sunday."……

NPR, Juan Williams and the Clash of News and Talk

"Would you have fired Juan if you were still Vice President of News at NPR?" asked a longtime friend. He was referring of course to NPR News analyst Juan Williams' expression of concern about fellow airplane passengers in "Muslim garb." (Rhetoric note: He was trying to make the exact reverse point than his subordinate preamble suggested, so he's due demerits for poor phrasing.) My answer: It's not a hypothetical. We actually faced these same issues in the late 1980's, when I was head of NPR News: Cokie Roberts, who was covering Capitol Hill for NPR, received an offer from ABC……

Why does anyone really want to buy NBC?

WASHINGTON – Any day now, if published reports are accurate, cable giant Comcast will celebrate Thanksgiving not by dining on turkey but by feasting on peacock: Comcast is set to acquire NBC from General Electric. However, reports in the past few weeks touching on the financial performance and prospects of NBC Television raise an interesting question: Why does anyone really want to buy NBC? And why does Comcast, in particular, really want to buy NBC?……

Essay and a Woman’s Nation

I have just returned from the Los Angeles launch of A Woman's Nation –an ambitious project and a unique report on the status of American women which includes an essay I co authored with Stacy Smith, Ph.D. and Amy Granados entitled Sexy Socialization: Today's Media and the Next Generation of Women" . The Womens' Nation initiative is produced by California First Lady Maria Shriver with partners including the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the CCLP and the multifaceted report –including a comprehensive national poll–is known as, The Shriver Report…….