A Discussion with Journalist Robert Jensen, Media in an Age of Cataclysm

Talk Nation Radio, for the week of June 16, 2010
A Discussion with Journalist Robert Jensen, Media in an Age of Cataclysm (our web site is here and we tend to upload content there first on Thursdays. Look for audio of this broadcast for download there, at our blog, and at Pacifica's Audioport, Archive.org, and Radio4all.net)

We look at media coverage of the leading cataclysmic stories, the BP spill, war in the Middle East and recent events in international waters where aid workers were targeted by Israeli commandos, global warming, corporate corruption, plus the state of government javascript:void(0)in America. How can we improve the media and be more actively engaged in helping?

Journalist Robert Jensen is at the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He has a Ph.D. in media ethics and law from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. He worked as a journalist for a decade prior to joining academia, and presently teaches courses in media law, ethics, and politics.

Cataclysm One: There is a discussion raging about how to save the Gulf of Mexico from BP's oil. The oceans provide us with air, and stabilize the atmosphere. What will thousands of barrels of oil per day going into the gulf do to the production of oxygen in the world's most effective lung system?

Scientists at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Minerals Management Service that granted BP deep water drilling rights, are frantically searching for ways to repair the problem. The head of America's joint task force on the containment operation, Admiral Thad Allen, is becoming more flustered as he tries to answer questions from a few of the more astute reporters. They have begun to press the Admiral and BP for answers about the scale of the disaster. Reading between the lines, when field reporters tell major TV news anchors that the oceanographers they interviewed are "terrified" we know there is something dark and terrible shaking the core of America's belief system that we are too big to fail.

How did we reach this level of cataclysm, and what role has the media played?

Airing on WHUS Radio, Wed. June 16th at 5:00 PM EST www.whus.org before upload to other fine radio stations in the Pacifica community and any LPFM, Net-radio, podcasting stations that wish to air us weekly.