News Dissector Paperback by Danny Schechter

Product Details

• Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd. (2001-06-05)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 300 pages
• ISBN-13: 9781888451207
• Item Weight: 368.55 grams
• Dimensions: 0.0 x 0.0 x 0.0 cm

News Dissector brings together Schechter’s writings on human rights, politics, and the media over a span of four decades of activism and reporting.

“Danny Schechter, a kind of journalist without borders, has shaken up public broadcasting, among many other media institutions, in the course of his career as a self-styled ‘News Dissector’ and human rights advocate.” —The Nation

“As ‘News Dissector’ on Boston radio, Danny Schechter literally educated a generation.” —Noam Chomsky

News Dissector brings together Schechter’s writings on human rights, politics, and the media over a span of four decades of activism and reporting, including ten years in radio news reporting and twenty years creating television news and public affairs programs and independent documentaries.

These pieces provide a fascinating look at the trajectory of what was once simply called “The Movement.” Allen Ginsberg, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, Abbie Hoffman, and other figures from the counter-culture and new left come alive in these pages. Schechter’s run-ins with the FBI and the CIA provide fascinating and often entertaining reading. A large section covers Vietnam during and after the war. Throughout, Schechter exposes the practices and prejudices of the news media and proposes detailed corrective action. The collection also includes pieces of a more personal and sometimes emotional nature—the observations, impressions, and inspirations of a radical journalist. News Dissector is an enlightening book by one of the few journalists to emerge from the alternative media of the ’60s and ’70s with his politics and principals intact.

About the Author

DANNY SCHECHTER (1942–2015) was a veteran journalist and an Emmy Award–winning broadcaster who reported on and produced programming about human rights issues—including Chinese affairs—for years. A former CNN and ABC news producer, he executive produced China Now for PBS. His writing on current events and media issues appeared in the Boston Globe, Newsday, Village Voice, the Nation, Columbia Journalism Review, and many other publications. He visited China in 1997 to speak at an international symposium sponsored by Beijing TV. He is the author of News Dissector: Passions, Pieces, and Polemics, 1960–2000 (Akashic Books), Falun Gong’s Challenge to China (Akashic Books), and The More You Watch, The Less You Know (Seven Stories Press). He was the executive producer of Globalvision and executive editor of Media Channel, a global media watchdog website.