Fun_People Archive
8 Feb
1995 P.U.-litzer prizes

Date: Thu, 8 Feb 96 18:22:25 -0800
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: 1995 P.U.-litzer prizes

Forwarded-by: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: "Peter H. Salus" <peter@va.pubnix.com>
Forwarded-by: Mike Pounds <mpounds@csulb.edu>
Forwarded-by: Apurba Kundu <A.Kundu@bradford.ac.uk>

ANNOUNCING THE P.U.-LITZER PRIZES FOR 1995
By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon

     It is time for us to announce the winners of the P.U.-litzer
Prize for 1995.

     Competition was intense for the fourth annual P.U.-litzers,
which recognize some of the stinkiest media performances of the
past year.

     And now, the envelopes please.

UN-AMERICAN JOURNALISM PRIZE -- Publisher Ted Owen, San Diego
Business Journal

     According to his staff, publisher Ted Owen banned photos of
individuals of certain ethnic backgrounds (including Vietnamese, Iraqis
and Iranians) from prominent spots in his weekly business journal on the
grounds that such visible coverage was "un- American." Asked about the
ban by a local daily, Owen commented:  "It is not a public debate how I
run the newspaper." But after protests from area businesses, Owen
renounced any photo-apartheid policy.

[snip]

"THE USUAL SUSPECTS" AWARD -- Too many winners to name

     Within hours of the murderous explosion at the federal building in
Oklahoma City on April 19, dozens of journalists declared that Muslim
extremists were the probable culprits. "It has every single earmark of
the Islamic car-bombers of the Middle East," wrote syndicated columnist
Georgie Anne Geyer. Columnist Mike Royko recommended picking out "a
country that is a likely suspect" and bombing its "oil fields, refineries,
bridges, highways, industrial complexes." Others who rushed to judgment
included Jim Stewart of CBS News, ABC's John McWethy, New York Post
editorial writers, New York Times columnist A.M. Rosenthal and
media-touted terrorism "experts" Jeff Kamen and Steve Emerson.

[snip]

Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon are syndicated columnists and
authors of "Through the Media Looking Glass: Decoding Bias and
Blather in the News" (Common Courage Press).
prev [=] prev © 1996 Peter Langston []