for tonight's conversations of great minds i'm joined by jeff cohen jeff is the founding director of the parks out here for independent media college where he is an associate professor of journalism a former senior producer for m.s.n. b c's donahue program he's appeared as a political commentator and national media and helped found both the media watch dog group fair fairness and accuracy in reporting as well as the activism site roots action dot org jeff is also the author of numerous books including his most recent cable news confidential my misadventures in corporate media jeff cohen welcome back to the program great to be with you know great to have you with us. let's start with you what got you started in media what drew you to media in the first place well the mainstream media almost killed me i grew up in the vietnam generation and i was on like most kids thirteen fourteen fifteen i was a mainstream media junkie i would come home and watch the national news i would read time magazine and i was a complete war hawk and in junior high or early high school i wrote an essay attacki

and welcome back to conversations with great minds i'm speaking with jeff cohen professor and founding director of the park center for independent media to figure college and author of numerous books including cable news confidential misadventures in corporate media so jeff back to the how media has changed from eighty six when you found it fair until today four years earlier four years before eighty six reagan had stopped functionally enforcing the sherman antitrust act and so we saw this brand new creature on the american scene not just the media seen the m.n.a. artist the mergers and acquisitions people the michael milken the the mitt romneys of the world and inflated huge role in newspapers. in cities there would be sometimes two three in big cities five six eight newspapers. by the time we got to the seventy's there were a lot of two newspaper towns but then the merger started happening and a few companies started chaining up all the big newspapers and to chain him up they would go into debt and to be able to for these few corporations to grow vast that the expense of newspaper di

talked with jeff cohen about the rise of corporate cable news and the hidden bias of the mainstream media and don't forget my new book the crash of twenty sixteen the plot to destroy america and what we can do to stop it is now .

she wrote -- interesting questions, and jeff cohen. >> these are all good questions.he one thing that is missing is the discretion of the hallowed journalistic traditions of the washington post. any media consumer who has been looking at the articles in the last day and half has heard about what will happen to the washington post journalistic tradition. the paper of watergate. the paper that exposed watergate, published the pentagon papers. serious and diligent news consumer will realize coming incidents like the watergate conspiracy and the pentagon papers, that was 40 years ago. the hallowed tradition of the washington post we are worried that bezos will ruin, -- and we do not know if it will get worse, it may not -- but that tradition, the washington post has really been a newspaper of the bipartisan consensus. in nations like iraq could hardly have happened without the editorial pages headed by a hawk, fred hiatt, who is still hise today, and in editorial pages before the iraq invasion, more than two dozen editorials urging the invasion. skeptics were merciless th

i talked with jeff cohen about the rise of corporate cable news and the hidden bias of the mainstream media and don't forget my new book the crash of twenty sixteen the plot to destroy america and what we can do to stop.

people but ten years later in one president later it really changed its warmongering ways less jeff cohen founder of fairness in the ag.

jeff merkley, thank you for your time. appreciate it. >> you're welcome. >>> we will have more on this issue later this hour. joining me is former rugby player ben cohen and others. >>> trayvon martin parallel to emmitt till. in my mind, same thing. >> oprah winfrey opening up about everything from trayvon martin to the discussion of race in this country to a new movie that she has coming out. christopher witherspoon will talk to me about their one-on-one interview. >>> d-day for a-rod is expecting news at the top of the hour about a suspension for the bronx bomber today. we will have the latest from yankees stadium. >>> that leads us to today's big question for you. we wanted to figure out do you think that the mlb ban means the ends of a-rod's career? head over to my twitter or facebook pages and weigh in. oh, he's a fighter alright. since aflac is helping with his expenses while he can't work, he can focus on his recovery. he doesn't have to worry so much about his mortgage, groceries, or even gas bills. kick! kick... feel it! feel it! feel it! nice work! ♪ you got it! you got it! yes! aflac's gonna help take care of his expenses. and us...we're go