Biting the Media's Hand, and Demanding Air Time/ Danny Schechter

[KoKo]

NYT's

OVER time, the most radical counterculture figures usually go from being controversial to merely provocative. But Danny Schechter, whose latest documentary film "WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception)" takes swipes at the media's coverage of the war in Iraq, is probably a few years off from being admitted into the mainstream.


Mr. Schechter, 62, who has been a gadfly since his days as a high school newspaper editor in the Bronx, embraces what he terms "participatory journalism," perhaps best understood as reporting with an attitude. He is withering in his attacks of the "corporate media," which he says fill the airwaves with trivia. He also criticizes the "timidity of the dwindling outlets that still attempt to practice journalism."

"American media is doing more to undermine democracy than support it," he said. "There were 800 so-called experts on the cable news channels who commented on the war in Iraq and only six of them opposed the invasion. There is, outside of the alternative media, little diversity in the mainstream. It is all the same packaging."

Mr. Schechter, bearded, rotund and a bit disheveled in a red sweater and black leather jacket, is not without his critics. The Onion panned his most recent film, saying, "Schechter puts himself front and center in the narrative, but his nebbishy presence does little but invite unflattering comparisons to Michael Moore."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/nyregion/29profile.html?oref=login

[Old and In the Way]

1. Danny Schector, the News dissector.

That was his nom de plume when he headed the news at the great radio station WBCN/Boston in the early 70s.