News War

News War, a four-part series aired on PBS's Frontline, investigates the state of contemporary news journalism. In the first three episodes, correspondent Lowell Bergman interviews an impressive array of sources, including journalists, newspaper editors (such as Bill Keller from the New York Times), television news producers, attorneys (notably First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams), bloggers, public officials, scholars, and even the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt. Together with this all-star cast of commentators, Bergman covers a wide variety of topics, including the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the protection of anonymous sources, the freedom of the press vs. national security, the market control of news content, the proliferation of news outlets, the relationship between newspapers and television news, the power of the blogosphere, and even the influence of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, all of which adds up to a complex, nuanced diagnosis of the economic, political, and moral health of American news journalism. The fourth episode takes a global perspective, as Greg Barker examines Arab media and the U.S. response, and Sheila Coronel composes a “Requiem” for journalists killed around the world. Although interesting, the final episode feels tacked on, but on the whole News War encourages critical thinking about who creates the news, what forces shape its content, where it belongs in a democracy, and why we should value its freedom. DVD extras include a PDF teacher's guide. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (J. Wadland)