Palmer Faran on Ukraine Response: Echoes of the Past
|
As the granddaughter of a Jewish orphan who fled Russian pogroms in the early 20th century and lost family in the Holocaust,I’m profoundly disturbed by current events in the Ukraine. But, like many of us, besides donating some cash, I’m having difficulty figuring out how to help.
Last week, writer Palmer Faran presented the following piece to my writers group, “the Write Stuff,” in Lincoln, Mass. She has graciously allowed me to share it, it here. –Anita M. Harris
ECHOES OF THE PAST: IS ANYONE LISTENING?
Below are 2 quotations that I read years ago and have always remembered.
“They came for my neighbor down the street. I was scared
and said nothing. They came for my friend next door. Still I
said nothing. Then they came for me.”
“Evil triumphs when good people do nothing.”
I have just finished reading “The Boys in the Boat,” a wonderful book about the United States rowing team that won the gold in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Interspersed with the stories of these remarkable boys, is the story of events in Nazi Germany’s Berlin. As I thought about it, I felt as though I were reading about current events.
The 1936 Olympics were a propaganda opportunity for Hitler’s Nazis. They were good at it. The Jews, the Gypsies, the homosexuals were hustled out of the way. Flower boxes were everywhere, windows repaired, streets swept. The Germans were at their best and it worked. Many who attended the events thought Germany was just fine.
Although Germany took many of the gold medals, it was not a clean sweep. Other countries also won medals. The most prized was the 9 man rowing crew who won the gold for the Americans. The most stunning was the track events in which Jesse Owens, a Black American runner, won 4 gold medals, making a lie of Hitler’s claim of the inferiority of the Black race.
Soon after the Olympics were over, Hitler took over the Rhineland, a demilitarized zone established by the Allies after World War I. He claimed there were Germans there who needed protection. The world stood by.
Sound familiar?
In 1938 Hitler invaded Sudetenland, part of Czechoslovakia, claiming there were Germans there also. The world stood by.
Familiar again?
In 1939 he invaded Czechoslovakia, a claim for a greater Germany. In the Munich agreement, the Allies sacrificed that nation. Later that year Poland fell, then Belgium, Netherlands, France, Denmark, Norway. The little fires that were contained for a while burst into flames that soon engulfed the whole world.
Is our collective memory so short? Have we learned nothing in the last almost 100 years?
The world was different then, no nuclear bombs, no television. Our excuse was that we didn’t know. (Although many did know.) Now we watch in real time. Buildings crumbling before our eyes, bodies in the street, a child’s shoe in the gutter. This is not a movie. What will be our excuse this time?
The cries of mothers and children, the moans of the wounded and dying echo across the years. Do you hear them in the halls of power in Washington? Are you listening? Is anyone listening? –Palmer Faran
Palmer Faran is a long-time Massachusetts resident who recently moved to Arizona.
Cambridge Author Anita Harris Addresses Cornell Reunion Class
|
On June 12, I had the privilege of introducing the zoom happy hour for classmates who attended the 51st reunion of my graduating class. I touched on some of the incidents I wrote about in my 2015 book, Ithaca Diaries, which is about our four years 1966-1970. Sometimes, I call the book “Gidget Goes to the Revolution” which, in a way, sums up my college experience. But 51 years later, I thought it would be important to reflect on the past as it relates to the present and future–rather a handful for a 10-minute talk–but I think I managed to do it. Here’s a link to the video; the script, which I did not follow exactly, is inserted below.
Hi, I’m so glad to see everyone here, and especially that we’re all still here after this difficult year. I know that some of us are disappointed not to be in Ithaca—but the good part is that friends from far away can be with us. One such friend said he would join in if I provided free drinks…which I am…in my living room. CHEERS!
51st ANNIVERSARY OF GRADUATION 1970 I’m sure you know that this is the 51st anniversary week of our crazy graduation. With those three walkouts, and the demonstration on stage where Morris Bishop, the distinguished historian and leader of the processional hit someone over the head with the baton he was carrying… Many people think that it was Dave Burack—my gov instructor—who got hit over the head …Burack swears it was his roommate…In any case, the demonstrators got hauled off stage and into a cop car…The bear at the top of the mace got bent and has never been the same—nor, I think, have we.
I remember that really well…which is amazing because people were passing a JOINT when we were standing in the graduation processional…and I was definitely stoned.
I WROTE ABOUT THAT IN MY BOOK, ITHACA DIARIES which is based on the journals I kept as an undergraduate: it starts with me arriving at Cornell freshman year carrying the pink suitcase my uncle leon gave me for my bat mitzvah—goes through draft card burnings, demonstrations against the war, the straight takeover, MY LOVE LIFE, WHAT WAS I THINKING Kent State…and ends on graduation day….when, to my amazement, I even led a demonstration.
I WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT ITHACA DIARIES LAST YEAR, AT OUR FIFTIETH but with the pandemic that really didn’t work out. So this year, Sally and Kathy asked me to introduce the social hour– they told me several times to be brief and to keep in mind that this is supposed to be a HAPPY hour. So I’m not going to reminisce a whole lot…I will just move the story ahead a little, wax a bit historical and philosophical, and then we’ll breakout out the drinks. I mean..join the breakout sessions.
*
SINCE ITHACA DIARIES CAME OUT, I”VE BEEN WORKING ON TWO SEQUELS.
THE FIRST SEQUEL IS ABOUT MY FIRST YEAR OUT OF CORNELL— and I imagine that many of us went through similar experiences. After all the turmoil on campus, and changes in the late sixties, I had no idea what to do with myself. (And of course, I was an English major…need I say more?) But as a fledgling feminist, I wanted to prove that I could do things: that anything a guy could do, I could do, too. I got a bunch of short-term jobs.
WEST VIRGINIA First I got a job with the ILR School that took me traveling around the country to several hospitals,; in West Birginia, I had my first look at coal miners with black lung disease.
I WORKED IN A POLITICAL CAMPAIGN where one of the pols spent his days pretending to read the newspaper while staring at my legs…
THEN I WENT ON A ROAD TRIP cross country with two Brits I didn’t know, whose names I found on a bulletin board. They were both named John John, John, and I drove cross country in a big black buick =–u drive it—and picked up every derelict and druggie, all the way from Miami to San Francisco.
AFTER THAT, I WORKED WITH DISADVANTAGED TEENS IN THE PHILADELPHIA GHETTO…AND FINALLY, I WOUND UP IN HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA.
That’s where the first sequel, which I’m CALLING PHILADELPHIA STORIES ENDS.
HARRISBURG
SO, THEN, THE SEQUEL TO THE SEQUEL: HARRISBURG IT TURNED OUT THAT THREE OF OUR CLASSMATES, ED ZUCKERMAN, FRED SOLOWEY, AND VINCENT BLOCKER, WERE ALSO IN HARRISBURG, EACH FOR HIS OWN REASONS. WE AND SOME OTHER PEOPLE ENDED UP STARTING A NEWSPAPER THERE, IN CONNECTION TO A MAJOR POLITICAL TRIAL— IT WAS THE TRIAL OF THE HARRISBURG 8., WHICH HAD AN INTERESTING CORNELL CONNECTION.
HARRISBURG 8 TRIAL BERRIGAN: You may remember Dan Berrigan the anti war Priest, and poet who was deputy director of Cornell United religious work. Anyway, while Dan Berrigan was in prison, Nixon’s FBI Director J EDGAR HOOVER ACCUSED DANIEL’s brother Philip , who was also in prison, of conspiring to kidnap Henry Kissinger and blow up underground heating tunnels in Washington DC. Also accused were former ILR Professor Eqbal Ahmad, and six others—mostly nuns and priests. I’m not kidding, I’m not kidding.
So, Ed, Fred, Vincent and I started a newspaper called the Harrisburg Independent Press—or—HIP- around the trial of the Harrisburg 8. That was how I became a journalist, the paper was amazing.
And, for the last few years I’ve been working on a book on my experiences at HIP.
A FEW WEEKS AGO, I WAS WORKING ON THE CONCLUSION. And I started wondering what the heck am I doing, why am I time traveling, going back into the past all the time?
ONE REASON IS PERSONAL : AS WITH Ithaca diaries, I needed to understand on a personal level, just what had gone down, to get things straight in my head, this was such a formative period, in order to figure out what to do next.
BUT ANOTHER REASON IS HISTORICAL/SOCIETAL.
WHEN I FIRST STARTED WORKING ON THE HARRISBURG BOOK, TRUMP WAS JUST COMING INTO OFFICE, AND I FELT THE COUNTRY WAS DIVIDED, much as it was in the late 60s and early 70s. I thought it might be interesting to draw some parallels between the present day divisiveness along the lines of race, poverty, ethnicity, and corruption… and what was going on back then, under the Nixon administration, with race relations, the Vietnam War, dirty tricks and such.
SPIRALS: BROKEN PATTERNS: Then I thought about my first book, it’s called Broken patterns, and it’s about our generation of professional women in relation to our own mothers and grandmothers. It describes a spiral pattern in history—a spiral pattern that I think holds true for Individuals as well.
WHAT DO I MEANBY SPIRALS? HERE I’d LIKE TO PONTIFICATE, A BIT, IF YOU WILL INDULGE ME…
Many of us—myself included—tend to think about progress in a linear way. That is, that to progress, we move forward in a straightforward path toward a goal. But the older I get, the more I see that life sort of emerges in a series of starts and stops—that we get just so far, in moving toward a goal—maybe we reach it; maybe we get blocked… and then, as a society or as individuals, we tend to pull back to reassess, to reintegrate our own pasts, our country’s past, in order to move forward, once again.
TODAY A TURNING POINT IN A SPIRAL I think that now as a society we’re at a turning point in a spiral that’s kind of similar to where we were. 50 years ago. Now, as then, society is divided. Many have moved toward equality but others have been left behind. As you know, there are issues of race, poverty, war, environment, how government should work, what kind of nation we want to be. BUT despite all of the disruptions, the divisiveness, the protests, the violence, I feel heartened that many of us are looking back historically, to understand how we got to this place so that we can regroup to find new ways of doing things. I know that I’m painting with a rather broad brush—but I believe that==or I HOPE that– retreating a bit to reassess, will allow us move forward as individuals, and as a society, once again. END PONTIFICATION
COMING TOGETHER FOR OUR 51st In the same way, coming together for our 50th, or 51st reunion, gives us the chance to look back, to heal, to understand, to figure out where we’re at in order to find new ways to move forward in our own lives. I’m hoping that in our social… er happy hour, we’ll have a chance to catch up, figure out where we’ve been, where we are now, and what adventures come next as we enter this new phase in our lives. TOAST WITH GLASS
One quick reminder—please use chat to catch up/share info or addresses with anyone you want to stay in touch with after the social.
Letter from San Antonio: Texas Power Politics?
|
Our friend R in San Antonio reports on the current weather situation in Texas…perhaps giving new meaning to the idea of “power politics.” He asked that his name not be used. —Anita Harris
To our friends who have been worried about us because of the crazy weather:
Thank you for your expressions of concern. We are fine. Here is the story.
We heard that last Saturday, the temperatures would go below freezing and our insurance company (State Farm) advised us to keep the water running to prevent the pipes from freezing. We did that, and the pipes never froze. In addition, the external parts of our pipes have long been covered with insulation. What I did on Saturday was to put heating pads on the external pipes and turn the temperature of the pads up to the maximum. I plugged the heating pads into an outlet in our bedroom. The window there is open a crack and I put towels there to keep from freezing. We have slept very comfortably.
On Sunday night, it snowed about 4 inches. and that is when the problems started, mostly for the city, not for us, but unfortunately for many of our friends. The electric company instituted rolling blackouts. In theory they were supposed to be 15 minutes on, 45 minutes off, each hour, but in reality, they morphed into 5 minutes on, 23 hours, 55 minutes off, every day or simply being off for a couple of days straight. Since we use gas for heating and since our power never went off, we were fine, but many people we know were not. Collecting the data from these people I gathered that the electric company was punishing the major individual users (i.e., people who use electricity for heating) and neighborhoods that are major users (i.e, ones with small houses close together). Our neighborhood has houses that are pretty far apart so, collectively, I doubt that the neighborhood uses much electricity compared to many other parts of the city. Also (alas) much of our neighborhood votes Republican and even though the city government is Democratic and progressive, the individuals in charge of the power grid are Republican appointees. They have done a miserable job.
To make matters worse, because of the power failures and the bursting of pipes, the city water company has had to cut off water from many people (add these to the people who have no water because their own pipes burst). The water company fears that the water will back up and that raw sewage will come out of the faucets so they have advised people to boil their water. (Of course, if you have no power, you can’t boil water). In our case, we get our water directly from the aquifer, via a pump located at least 300 feet underground. As long as we have power, we will have no water problems but we are stockpiling some water, just in case. So, many people have been freezing in the cold and darkness and suffering from thirst. Our former governor, Rick Perry, a Republican, says that Texans would rather freeze than endure federal regulation. The city has opened the Convention Center and other buildings to people who need to keep warm. Naturally, these places would be superspreaders of the Covid virus. And just when the city had turned the corner and cases in San Antonio were going down rapidly!
It was very unusual to see our cars buried in the snow. We had not had a real snowstorm here since January 1985. The temperature on Monday dropped to about 10 degrees.
In terms of our personal situation, the weather has affected us a little bit. First, L’s second Covid vaccination, scheduled for yesterday, had to be canceled. They are supposed to contact her soon to re-schedule. Our internet connection vanished on Tuesday and has just resumed today (Thursday). I called AT&T and they told me that the cold weather had damaged some of their centers so that the internet was going down all over Texas and Oklahoma. Our newspaper stopped being delivered as did our mail and the recycling has not been picked up. We even ran out of coffee, meaning that we are threatened with the end of civilization as we know it. Yesterday, our daughter volunteered to go out to get coffee. Fortunately, much but not all of the snow and ice had melted by yesterday. There was such a mob at the grocery store that she decided to try a drugstore. It too was closed. Then another one had all the shelves stripped bare. The next place she tried was also mobbed She observed that the traffic lights on Bandera Road were off and the traffic was not moving. She spent about 20 minutes at the same spot before the police came and pushed a non-functional car out of the way. The next place she went to was closed but finally she found an open drugstore and was still unable to get the coffee.
We tried phoning people. I could call or text some people but my efforts to contact my Argentine relatives failed. Linda and Sara had similar problems with their phones.
This morning when we got up all the snow had melted. The driveway had turned to a sheet of ice so I had to navigate it very carefully as I went to look for the newspaper, which was not there. Then at 8 AM it started to snow and it has not stopped. It looks like it could be a blizzard although no blizzard is forecast. It will probably taper off. The forecast says that we will be above freezing by Saturday and that next Thursday the temperature will be 77.
Interesting that our Republican senator, Ted Cruz, who fought until the last minute, claiming that Trump won in November, has flown off for a Mexican vacation in Cancun, while his constituents freeze in the dark and are afraid of drinking the water here. I propose that, in the spirit of denialism, which he is very good at (e.g. climate change), Ted demonstrate that the water situation is fine by drinking a glass of tap water in Cancun.
Life is interesting here. So far, we are all fine and likely to stay that way.
Un abrazo, as they say in Texas. R
–Anita Harris is a writer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA. R is a childhood friend. New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a PR and digital marketing firm, also in Cambridge.
Boston’s vigil for Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life community “heartening”
|
I was horrified by the mass shooting in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue…all the more so against a backdrop of the current climate of hate in the US.
But I was heartened at the showing of support from the individuals, religious people and politicians who attended or spoke at yesterday’s vigil for the shooting victims, held at the bandshell on the Boston Common.
While, of course, the same sort of thing could happen here–and it did, at the 2013 Boston Marathon–I found solace, for a time, in the eloquence and dedication to human rights–especially of Attorney General Maura Healey, Congressman Joe Kennedy, and State Treasurer Deb Goldberg–and of BU student Ariel Stein, a Boston University student who has belonged all her life to the Tree of Life Synagogue, where the deadly shootings took place. “It is up to all of us to love,” she said.
I’m sorry to have missed talks by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Governor Charlie Baker but as one who is generally skeptical about politicians, I felt very glad to live in a state and city that elects responsible leaders–even if I sometimes don’t agree with them.
(I’ve been sending letters and will canvas to encourage infrequent voters to vote in the mid-term elections–and hope that you will do the same.)
–Anita M. Harris
Anita Harris is a writer and communications consultant based in Cambridge, MA. New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a content, PR and digital marketing agency, also in Cambridge.
Women’s March Photos, Cambridge 2018
|
Had a great time at this year’s women’s march…Much good cheer; great signage, and a wide range of participants. At about 2 pm, half-way through, a police officer told me that the crowd estimate was 4000…but he believed the number of participants was twice that, and I’d guess even a few more. (Given that there were only about 10 porta-potties, I’d also guess that was many more than the organizers expected). The sound system left something to be desired (from my perch on a monument, I could see the speaker but not hear an understandable word) but I much enjoyed the creativity of the signage and enthusiasm of the attendees.
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group, a pr and content marketing firm in Cambridge.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Dick Pirozzolo Review: Power, Strategy, the US and the South China Sea
|
“We’re going to war in the South China Sea … no doubt.’’ —Steve Bannon, former Trump policy advisor.
Great Powers, Grand Strategies, a new book edited by policy expert Anders Corr, PhD, urges that the United States play a diplomatic role in the Pacific and project naval power as a stalwart against China’s efforts to expand that nation’s influence worldwide.
The South China Sea has been a churning cauldron of controversy over Paracel and Spratly Islands since the third century BC, when what is now the Peoples Republic of China claimed the islands for themselves.
In recent times, armed battles between China and other claimants of the islands and surrounding waterways have become concerning—particularly when it comes to the new role Vietnam is playing as a U.S. ally in the effort to maintain the balance of power in the region.
The region has been largely ignored by the US, which tends to focus on the Middle East. Of late, the White House has been pressuring China to tamp down North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, making it difficult to confront Xi, the Chinese leader, over his aspirations in Southeast Asia.
Six months ago, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon stated bluntly in an interview. ‘We’re going to war in the South China Sea … no doubt.’’
Amidst the controversy, which has sparked deadly conflict between Chinese warships and Philippine and Vietnamese commercial and military vessels, comes Great Powers, Grand Strategies: the New Game in the South China Sea, a book to be released on January 15 by the Naval Institute Press.
The volume, written by a group of foreign policy and diplomacy authorities and edited by Corr, examines China’s desire to project its power in this vital region for shipping, fishing, and oil exploration as part of a strategy aimed at projecting power and influence worldwide. Corr is founder and CEO of Corr Analytics in New York, which helps governments and businesses evaluate strategic and international political risks as part of their decision-making process.
In the book, Corr maintains that Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and other Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with a stake in maintaining peaceful, multifaceted trade relations with China are being blackmailed by China’s overreach, while the United States needs to maintain its Naval presence in the Pacific or cede American influence and power to China.
“This book is the first to focus on major power grand strategies including economic, diplomatic, and military strategies, and their interrelationships so that we can explore how global actors are, on the one hand, contributing to the solution and, on the other hand, perpetuating conflict,” he explains.
Anders Corr, PhD
Corr cites China’s actions as ample reason for the US Navy to maintain its cautionary presence in the Pacific, which he regards as, “part of a global system of defense of not only the United States but its allies and values, which include international law, democracy, and human rights. To criticize the United States deployment in the Pacific as offensive without geographic context ignores the global picture and principles the United States is defending.
Corr calls into question China’s disputed claims to the Spratly Islands and sea lanes in the South China Sea and its maneuvering to control the territory militarily. After having established its boot print in theglobal system of defense of not only the United States but its allies and values, which include international law, democracy, and human rights. To criticize the United States deployment in the Pacific as offensive without geographic context ignores the global picture and principles the United States is defending.
“Viewing China’s presence in the South China Sea as defensive against U.S. forward deployment ignores China’s similar offensive actions in the East China Sea and Himalayan region of India, ” Corr adds. He decries China’s suppression of democracy, human rights, and international law in Asia and abroad and its efforts to remake global governance to its own advantage rather than on principles of democracy, stating, “China’s South China Sea actions are offensive when viewed in this global context.”
The volume assembles the thinking of foreign policy authorities Bill Hayton, Gordon Chang, Bernard Cole, James Fanell, and others who examine the conflict in the context of a global big picture.
As editor, Corr juxtaposes the grand strategies of the great powers to determine the likely outcomes of the dispute, and suggests ways to defuse tensions that are likely to spill over to other regions.
Corr has visited all South China Sea claimant countries, undertaking research in Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Brunei. He has also conducted analysis for USPACOM, CENTCOM, and NATO, including work in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.
[Great Powers, Grand Strategies, China & the Asia Pacific ( Naval Institute Press, January 15, 2018. 336 pp, Hardcover & eBook $34.95, ISBN: 978-1-68247-235-4]
Dick Pirozzolo is managing director of Pirozzolo Company Public Relations, an international corporate communications firm based in Boston. He coauthored “Escape from Saigon, a novel focusing on the last month of Vietnam War, in 1975.
New Cambridge Observer is a publication of the Harris Communications Group,an award-winningconten digital marketing and content strategy firm based in Cambridge, MA–of which Pirozzolo is a member.
Christina Inge: Cuts to “Meals on Wheels,” HHS Programs Unfair To Hard Workers
|
Guest Post
We hear that elders without the means to hire help don’t deserve a few public dollars to receive a hot meal and see a kind face. Because they should have had the foresight to grow rich and if they didn’t, it’s time for them to succumb to hunger.
Yet, every one of us benefits from many people’s labor for which they are paid but modestly.
Go out on the street today. Are they clean? That’s because of the sanitation workers you feel do not deserve life.
Can you read this? That’s because of the teachers you feel deserve to freeze.
Going to church today? It’s there because of the clergy and church secretaries you think should receive no medical care.
Did you buy food? Someone stocked those shelves-someone you would see starve.
The nursing associates who watched over you in the night when you were in the hospital cannot and would not take your life and health back.
Your teachers will not take back the knowledge we gave you, though you wish us so ill.
The garbage man will ensure clean streets tomorrow; the church folks will pray for your soul.
To those imposing the cuts: You will not defeat us. You are defeating your soul.
Shorenstein Report: Election News Coverage Failed the Voters
|
Trump image/Shorenstein Center Press release
Analyzing news coverage of the recent general election, a new report from Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy concludes that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump received coverage that was overwhelmingly negative in tone and extremely light on policy. In my view, it also implies that the structure of news organizations and the definition of “news” allowed Trump to hornswoggle reporters and editors as they tried to make sense of him and his candidacy.
The report entitled “News Coverage of the 2016 General Election: How the Press Failed the Voters,” was released today. It suggests that negativity is part of a pattern in place since the 1980s and is not limited to election coverage. “A healthy dose of negativity is unquestionably a good thing,” according Thomas Patterson, the study’s author, in a press release. “Yet an incessant stream of criticism has a corrosive effect. It needlessly erodes trust in political leaders and institutions and undermines confidence in government and policy,” resulting in a media environment full of false equivalencies that can mislead voters about the choices they face.
The study found that, on topics relating to the candidates’ fitness for office, Clinton and Trump’s coverage was virtually identical in terms of its negative tone. “Were the allegations surrounding Clinton of the same order of magnitude as those surrounding Trump?” asks Patterson. “It’s a question that political reporters made no serious effort to answer during the 2016 campaign.”
Trump has accused the media of bias against him and his opponents charge that he received an inordinate amount of coverage. According the report, When asked to explain their focus on Trump, journalists said that he made himself readily available to the press.[13] But “availability has never been the standard of candidate coverage. If that were so, third-party candidates and also-rans would dominate coverage. They hunger for news exposure.”
Rather, according to the report, “Trump’s dominant presence in the news stemmed from the fact that his words and actions were ideally suited to journalists’ story needs” That is, “news” is generally defined as information that is different or unusual, impacts a lot of people– “better yet when laced with conflict and outrage.” .Trump delivered that type of material by the cart load. Both nominees tweeted heavily during the campaign but journalists monitored his tweets more closely. Both nominees delivered speech after speech on the campaign trail but journalists followed his speeches more intently. Trump met journalists’ story needs as no other presidential nominee in modern times.”
This is the final report of a multi-part research series analyzing news coverage of candidates and issues during the 2016 presidential election. The study tracks news coverage from the second week of August 2016 to the day before Election Day.
This Shorenstein Center study is based on an analysis of news reports by ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, the Los Angeles Times, NBC, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. The study’s data were provided by Media Tenor, a firm that specializes in the content analysis of news coverage. The research was partially funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
