Media Nation – Page 2

Public broadcasting giant WNET doesn’t want you to see this Art Spiegelman cartoon

WNET, the New York public broadcasting giant, doesn’t want you to see this cartoon — at least not on public television.

The New York Times reports (gift link) that 90 seconds have been butchered out of a documentary about the artist Art Spiegelman that is scheduled to be shown as part of the “American Masters” series on PBS. It is, as you can see, wildly unflattering to President Trump, and it comes at a moment when Trump is trying to eliminate all funding for public media.

WNET vice president Stephen Segaller told Times reporter Marc Tracy that the 9-year-old drawing of Trump, with feces and flies on his head and a swastika superimposed over the image, was a “breach of protocol,” adding, “I don’t think we’d have made a different decision if it had been a year earlier.” Yeah, probably not. Last year at this time, Trump was leading President Joe Biden in the polls, so the incentive not to antagonize him was just as strong then as it is now.

Spiegelman was quoted as saying, “It’s tragic and appalling that PBS and WNET are willing to become collaborators with the sinister forces trying to muzzle free speech.”

But at least you can see Spiegelman’s cartoon in the Times. And here.

Targeting comment spam

I’ve been deluged by comment spam the past few days, so I’ve turned on a toggle that requires users to be registered and logged in before they can comment. In case you are prompted to take an extra step to post a comment, that’s the reason.

Why you should become a monthly paid supporter of Media Nation

Moon over the Zakim Bridge. Photo (cc) 2025 by Dan Kennedy.

Since 2005, I’ve been writing Media Nation as a free source of news and commentary about the media, politics, the First Amendment and, occasionally, other topics as well. I have never put up a paywall, nor will I.

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The Boston Globe’s newscast has reportedly reached the end of the line

I’m getting multiple messages that The Boston Globe is shutting down its TV/digital newscast, “Boston Globe Today.” There’s also a bit of an uproar from the newsroom that a message from a staff member who’s been laid off was removed from the Globe’s Slack channel. More later, I’m sure.

Here is the somewhat skeptical post I wrote when the newscast made its debut a little more than two years ago. As I said at the time, the producers needed to find ways of breaking the newscast down into stories that could be consumed by younger viewers on their phones.

And here’s what I wrote last fall when newscast host Segun Oduolowu popped up on a Kamala Harris fundraising call and explicitly endorsed her presidential campaign, creating an ethical dilemma for Globe management.

Is he still talking? Making sense of Trump’s nonsense address to Congress

My evening began at church with a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper. From there, it was all downhill.

The early moments of Donald Trump’s endless address to Congress (is he still talking?) made me think about Joe Biden’s final State of the Union address last March. It was, perhaps, Biden’s last really good public moment. Seated behind him, Kamala Harris was thoroughly enjoying herself while Mike Johnson looked glum.

Please become a supporter of Media Nation. For just $5 a month, you’ll receive a weekly newsletter with exclusive commentary and other goodies. Tomorrow I’ll take a look back at the first week of COVID and a news conference I attended in Mendocino County, California.

Now we are in the midst of chaos, all of it self-inflicted by Trump and his prime minister, Elon Musk. Authoritarianism, Three Stooges-style (who is the third Stooge?), is on the rise.

I don’t really have a coherent take on Tuesday night’s ugly proceedings, but here are a few thoughts. I’m curious to know what you thought, too.

Continue reading “Is he still talking? Making sense of Trump’s nonsense address to Congress”

We’re back online

Media Nation was down for about eight hours Friday, and my apologies if you were trying to access the site but couldn’t. The explanation is a cliché: I was messing around in places where I shouldn’t have been and our son, Tim, bailed me out.

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Arthur Fiedler says: Become a supporter of Media Nation today!

It’s time for your occasional reminder that though Media Nation is a free source of news and commentary, it takes a lot of work to produce. I’d appreciate it if you would consider becoming a supporter for just $5 a month. Supporters receive a weekly newsletter with exclusive content, a roundup of the week’s posts, photography and a song of the week.

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How a drive through Vermont introduced me to a remarkable and offbeat book

A great bookstore is one that introduces you to books that you didn’t know you wanted to read. Amazon doesn’t do that. Most physical bookstores succeed only partially.

Over the summer, though, our travels took us through Manchester, Vermont, where we visited the Northshire Bookstore, an independent outlet that has the advantage of being both enormous and lovingly curated and thus well-stocked with books I might not have heard of. That’s where I discovered Caleb Carr’s “My Beloved Monster,” a memoir about his life with a Siberian cat named Masha.

This is a supporters-only post available in the weekly Media Nation newsletter at Patreon. To read the rest of this post and to get a wrap-up of the week’s content, photography and a song of the week, please sign up here.

A new look for Media Nation

After several weeks of thinking about it, I’ve switched to a new theme for Media Nation. (“Theme” is WordPress-speak for “design.”) I’m still on the lookout for something better, but for now I think this will be an improvement. Why did I do this?

• My previous theme, Lovecraft, struck me as a bit too artsy for what I was looking for. The new theme, Twenty Sixteen, is more straightforward and newsier.

• As one of WordPress’ official themes, Twenty Sixteen receives regular maintenance updates. Lovecraft hadn’t been updated since 2022.

• With Lovecraft, you couldn’t see a link for commenting unless you clicked through to the individual post. As a result, I had to add “Leave a comment | Read comments” by hand to each post. Twenty Sixteen not only handles that automatically, but it gives you a count of how many people have commented. That way, you’ll know whether it’s worth clicking or not.

• Change is good.

Let me know what you think. If you have any suggestions for a better theme, I’m all ears.

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Boats along the Charles River in Waltham Center

The idea behind having a weekly newsletter for paid supporters is to offer something extra. Today, though, I thought I would unlock my most recent newsletter so that you can see what you’ll get if you join for $5 a month. Every Thursday I send out a collection of commentary, photography, a round-up of the week’s posts and a song. I hope you’ll consider joining. To become a paid supporter, just click here.