Summarizing the series in “Dismantling the Empire,” Dr. Johnson said that “blowback” means more than a negative, sometimes violent reaction to United States policy. “It refers to retaliation for the numerous illegal operations we have carried out abroad that were kept totally secret from the American public,” he wrote.

“This means that when the retaliation comes, as it did so spectacularly on Sept. 11, 2001, the American public is unable to put the events in context. So they tend to support acts intended to lash out against the perpetrators, thereby most commonly preparing the ground for yet another cycle of blowback.”

The course will not be about journalism per se, but I propose to try to understand 9-11 through a journalistic lens.

In many ways, the Li Gang case, as it is known, exemplifies how China’s propaganda machine — able to slant or kill any news in the age of printing presses and television — is sometimes hamstrung in the age of the Internet, especially when it tries to manipulate a pithy narrative about the abuse of power.

The ability of the public to push for greater openness in spite of official efforts to the contrary (still not to be underestimated) is an often overlooked reason for optimism.  Doctoral candidate Jia Dai in the School of Journalism is in the process of analyzing a series of similar events for their reflection of deliberative quality.

Rush Limbaugh talking about Obama’s trip: “In two days from now, he’ll be in India at $200 million a day.” Then Glenn Beck, on his radio show, saying: “Have you ever seen the president, ever seen the president go over for a vacation where you needed 34 warships, $2 billion — $2 billion, 34 warships. We are sending — he’s traveling with 3,000 people.” In Beck’s rendition, the president’s official state visit to India became “a vacation” accompanied by one-tenth of the U.S. Navy. Ditto the conservative radio talk-show host Michael Savage. He said, “$200 million? $200 million each day on security and other aspects of this incredible royalist visit; 3,000 people, including Secret Service agents.”

CNN’s Anderson Cooper tracked the flow above, because Bachmann had used his program to promote the false claim, and used the next program to correct the facts.  What a radical concept:  a journalist actually trying to get to the bottom of a story and find the truth (although it’s ironic that given the state of the current echo-chamber media his actions were regarded as noteworthy).

For small blogs that do not have the resources to build their own mobile apps, Pulse could serve as their main app, Mr. Kothari and Mr. Gupta say. To help readers discover new information sources, it features 10 publications, often small blogs, each week, and it is considering ways to incorporate recommendations from readers’ friends or experts in particular fields.

Such sites have the capability of adding to the visitors of even established sites like the Huffington Post.  However, once technology has enhanced all the ways we read and get connected to news and newssites, the next step is to figure out how to fund more “boots on the ground” reporting to drive all these data streams.

The indefinite suspension was a stark display of the clash between objectivity and opinion in television journalism. While Mr. Olbermann is anchor of what is essentially the “Democratic Nightly News,” the decision affirmed that he was being held to the same standards as other employees of MSNBC and its parent, NBC News, both of which answer to NBC Universal. Most journalistic outfits discourage or outright prohibit campaign contributions by employees.

When coupled with the recent revelation that Rupert Murdoch, owner of Newscorp of Fox News fame, contributed millions to the Republicans, these events make perfect dual illustrations of competing critiques of media bias.  The liberal MSNBC focused on the personal bias of the news figure Olberman, following policy intended to avoid individual conflict of interest.  The conservative Fox News was targeted by critics, who were more concerned with the ownership corporate level of conflict, which is argued to be at the root of bias.  So, on the left, individual level–on the right, corporate level critique of bias.  The difference:  on the left, the NBC network actually had a policy against political contributions and punished a violation;  on the right, Murdoch basically said, “Yeah, so what?”

Another perspective is provided by the media watchdog group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

In his Monday media column David Carr seems to cast doubt on the power of Stewart’s big target:  cable news, claiming its audience is relatively small in the big scheme of things.  But this model for pundit-based, conflict oriented echo-chamber news tends to corrupt the entire political conversation, yielding an effect larger than its actual audience would indicate.  Part of this corruption must also be regarded as the continuing links between the corporate parents of news organizations participating themselves in the flow of campaign funding–an example in the same Monday Times concerning a News Corp contribution to defeating a business tax in California, and then reporting negatively on the tax in a “War on Business” documentary on the Fox Business Network.