Eric Alterman

Columnist

Eric Alterman is a Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and Professor of Journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is also "The Liberal Media" columnist for The Nation, a senior fellow and "Altercation" weblogger for Media Matters for America, (formerly at MSNBC.com) in Washington, DC, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, where he writes and edits the "Think Again" column, a senior fellow (since 1985) at the World Policy Institute at The New School in New York, and a history consultant to HBO Films.

Alterman is the author of six books, including the national bestsellers, What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News (2003, 2004), and The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America (with Mark Green, 2004). The others include: When Presidents Lie: A History of Official Deception and its Consequences, (2004, 2005). His Sound & Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy (1992, 2000), won the 1992 George Orwell Award and his It Ain't No Sin to be Glad You're Alive: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen (1999, 2001), won the 1999 Stephen Crane Literary Award and Who Speaks for America? Why Democracy Matters in Foreign Policy1998).

Termed "the most honest and incisive media critic writing today" in the National Catholic Reporter, and author of "the smartest and funniest political journal out there," in The San Francisco Chronicle, Alterman is frequent lecturer and contributor to virtually every significant national publication in the US and many in Europe. In recent years, he has also been a columnist for: Worth, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and The Sunday Express (London).

A former Adjunct Professor of Journalism at NYU and Columbia, Alterman received his B.A. in History and Government from Cornell, his M.A. in International Relations from Yale, and his Ph.D. in US History from Stanford. He lives with his family in Manhattan, where he is completing his seventh book,

Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook to Post-Bush America, to be published by Viking in March 2008.

Currently

  • These Are Better Days

    November 13, 2008

    A mighty train of change is coming to Washington: will the insider establishment hop aboard?

  • A Liberal Supermajority (Finally) Finds Its Voice

    October 29, 2008

    All evidence to the contrary, mainstream media continue to frame election issues with discredited right-wing assumptions.

  • It's Sliming Time (Again)

    October 16, 2008

    Politics ain't beanbag, but the thuggishness of McCain and Palin and their conservative media enablers have infected our political discourse.

  • Reality Bites

    October 1, 2008

    That McCain and Palin actually have a shot at the White House gives one pause contemplating the future of this country.

  • Letters

    October 1, 2008 Subscribe

  • Something Stupid

    September 17, 2008

    John McCain is determined to lie his way into the White House, and pundits and reporters are doing everything they can to enable that strategy.

  • The Times, They Have A-Changed

    September 3, 2008

    Nothing short of a divine thunderbolt will get Obama's message through to the brain-dead media establishment.

  • Israel at 60: The State of the State

    September 3, 2008

    Israeli writers and intellectuals look at their nation and its problems in a more nuanced and realistic way than most Americans.

  • How to Cover the GOP

    August 29, 2008

    Since they got all the megastories wrong in Denver, here's a primer for the media horde as they descend on St. Paul.

  • Media Gone Mad

    August 26, 2008

    The national news narrative from Denver is completely nuts: consider the unsourced myth of the Clinton-Obama feud.

  • The Hillary Diehards

    August 25, 2008

    If there were any real news here, 15,000 journalists would be reporting it. Instead, they gather soundbites from a few nut cases who consider politics a form of therapy.

  • Obama and the Politics of 'Presumptuousness'

    August 13, 2008

    Dana Milbank's coverage of Obama in the Washington Post has become a symbol of a press corps that is almost as the Bush Administration.

  • I Read the News Today... Oh Boy

    July 16, 2008

    While some of America's smartest and most civic-minded people are trying to save daily newspapers, the media moguls who can make a difference seem to be completely off their rockers.

  • Obama vs. the Smart Guys (and Dumb Wars)

    June 26, 2008

    Barack Obama got it right on Iraq six years ago. Now, perhaps, so can the rest of us.

  • Loving John McCain

    June 19, 2008

    He' s not the maverick the mainstream media have proclaimed him to be.

  • Silence of the (MSM) Lambs

    June 12, 2008

    They enabled the Iraq catastrophe and now spin a self-flattering narrative to excuse their failings.

  • Say It Ain't So, Joe

    May 29, 2008

    Take a look at the qualities right-wing pundits so admire about dove-turned-hawk, Dem-turned-Republican Joe Lieberman.

  • Good Night and Good Luck

    May 15, 2008

    Pundits embrace the fantasy of Hillary Clinton's candidacy as foolishly as they embraced the Iraq War.

  • Letters

    May 14, 2008 Subscribe

    Readers write back on Jeremiah Wright's church and Henry Siegman's criticism of Israel; Eric Alterman answers his critics.

  • Mickey Mouse Media

    May 1, 2008

    A serious debate focused about torture, wiretapping, food prices, world hunger... oh, wait. That's the kind of fairy tale they don't do at Disney.

  • Motzira-Making on the Right

    April 17, 2008

    The politics of tenure at Barnard and beyond.

  • Who Are They Calling Elitist?

    March 27, 2008

    Why do conservatives continue to feel oppressed by the "liberal elite"?

  • The Ritual Sacrifice of Samantha Power

    March 20, 2008

    A principled academic gets ground up in the media hypocrisy machine.

  • (Some) Jews Against Obama

    March 6, 2008

    What do neocons and their media mouthpieces fear most about Obama's stance on Israel? Could it be honesty?

  • Conservative Cannibalism

    February 21, 2008

    Dumb and dumber: reviewing new books by David Frum and Jonah Goldberg.

  • 'Love Me, I'm a Liberal'

    February 7, 2008

    Thanks to a cowed media, scaremongering is the only remaining area of conservative competence.

  • Wall Street to Daily Papers: 'Drop Dead'

    January 24, 2008

    How can newspapers survive financial meltdown if they surrender to a culture of defeat?

  • Letters

    January 23, 2008 Subscribe

    Eric Alterman and Alan Dershowitz exchange views on who speaks for American Jews; readers debate endorsements and praise Stuart Klawans's review of There Will Be Blood.

  • The Lies of Quinn-Broderville

    January 10, 2008

    Truth, lies and attacks on Democrats from columnists at the Washington Post and the New York Times.

2007

  • 'Bad for the Jews'

    December 20, 2007

    A paradox of American Jewish political behavior: they think like liberals, but they let belligerent right-wingers who demonize and distort their values speak for them.

  • What's Really Wrong With the MSM?

    December 6, 2007

    They've lost our trust by providing conservatives a platform for deliberate deceptions, silencing reporters for revealing the truth and excusing their own self-serving behavior.

  • Debating for Dummies

    November 21, 2007

    At the Las Vegas Democratic debate, CNN Anchors Blitzer and Malvaux twisted legitimate questions into "gotcha" traps. There's gotta be a better way.

  • Of Lies, Catfights and Rock 'n' Roll

    November 8, 2007

    Official lies have always been with us. But our political life--as depicted by Maureen Dowd, among others--has been poisoned by the even more insidious unrebuttable lie.

  • The Liberal Hawks' Lament

    October 25, 2007

    Consider the plight of the embattled liberal hawks and their lonely struggle to discredit the left.

  • Burns's War: What Is It Good For?

    October 11, 2007

    An increasingly bookless universe has become the wasteland so many have feared. In a perfect world, we'd have more Ken Burnses expressing a multiplicity of views.

  • The Coming 'Stab in the Back' Campaign

    September 27, 2007

    Bush and the neocons are trying to save their crumbling reputations by blaming critics of the war for the debacle.

  • The Presidential Pageant

    September 13, 2007

    Here they go again: Bigfoot media are crafting the narratives that will distort the candidates, the issues and the entire presidential campaign.

  • It Ain't Necessarily So...

    August 23, 2007

    Despite what many in the media believe, the American public is interested in more than just right-wing punditry and celebrity gossip.

  • All Rupert, All the Time

    July 26, 2007

    Will Rupert Murdoch's play to own and operate the Wall Street Journal have a silver lining for liberals?

  • The Assault on Reality

    June 27, 2007

    What do the Washington Post --and the rest of the MSM--have against Al Gore?

  • The Liberal Voice

    June 14, 2007

    Thanks to the potty-mouths of Bush and Cheney, we've won the right to accidentally curse on the public airwaves. Now, what about all the networks' intentional antisocial behavior?

  • Potemkin Paper?

    May 31, 2007

    The New York Sun's alleged success is a figment of its conservative owners' imaginations.

  • 'Can We Talk?' (cont'd.)

    May 17, 2007

    If we are ever to solve the Israel/Palestinian conflict, learning each other's historical narratives is surely the place to begin.

  • The Post-Imus Conundrum

    May 2, 2007

    Liberals prefer to ignore that when it comes to verbal violence, white radio shock jocks are given the same pass as gangsta rappers.

  • The Real 'Fake News'

    April 19, 2007

    Progressives need to take on Fox News's ugly propaganda.

  • The Politics of Pundit Prestige...

    April 5, 2007

    Media bigwigs are taking a beating as bloggers challenge their accuracy, integrity and transparency.

  • The Many Man-Crushes of Chris Matthews

    March 22, 2007

    Like Elvis, the host of MSNBC's nightly shoutfest just can't help falling in love... with Bush, Giuliani, Thompson, Romney...

  • A Consequential Life

    March 8, 2007

    Arthur Schlesinger refused to recognize the boundaries most intellectuals accept.

  • Liberalism's Lost Libretto

    February 22, 2007

    Tom Stoppard's epic Coast of Utopia speaks as much to the state of the American left as it does to the roots of Russia's revolution.

  • Dude! Where's My Debate?

    February 8, 2007

    The majority of Americans support fair-trade policies--so why do mainstream pundits treat the idea with so much contempt?

  • Kristolizing the (Neoconservative) Moment

    January 29, 2007

    The poisonous William Kristol's consistently wrong on Iraq. Why does he remain a media darling?

  • Iraq and the Sin of Good Judgment

    January 17, 2007

    Given their sorry records on Iraq, why are are neocon pundits worth listening to at all?

2006

  • And the Beat Goes On...

    December 20, 2006

    A new book examining civil rights coverage demonstrates that the best reporting sometimes requires journalists to toss objectivity out the window.

  • Point, No Counterpoint: The Conservative Beat

    December 7, 2006

    The New York Times editors do a service by covering right-wingers: It would make sense to similarly cover progressives. Why don't they?

  • Liar. 'Liar?'

    November 22, 2006

    Bush's contempt for the truth and for those whose job it is to find it has created an existential crisis for mainstream media.

  • Time to Abolish the Editorial Page?

    November 9, 2006

    Do newspapers really need special pages for political pronouncements, stentorian tone and candidate endorsements?

  • The End of Times?

    October 26, 2006

    Journalism's in crisis, crushed by Wall Street and tarnished by a failure of nerve. As newspapers die and fake news proliferates, who will provide reliable information vital to a functioning democracy?

  • No 'Comments'

    October 12, 2006

    How can the MSM maintain they hold themselves to higher standards than the Drudge-driven political blogosphere when they ape its most irresponsible practices?

  • AIPAC Runs Right

    October 10, 2006

    American Jews are liberals and support Democrats. Why, then, do Jewish organizations, supported by contributions of liberal Jews, strategize with Republicans on how to smear these same Democrats?

  • A Meta-Read Is a Better Read

    September 28, 2006

    The notion that the function of journalists is to explain "the truth" is about as quaint as America's participation in the Geneva Conventions.

  • Lying About 9/11? Easy as ABC

    September 14, 2006

    Why did the network humiliate its news division, ignore historians and insult Americans with a 9/11 docudrama that it knew was a tissue of lies?

  • All Governments (and Some Journalists) Lie

    August 31, 2006

    Democracy demands that journalists tell the truth. The success of liars like Bob Novak and Ann Coulter is a greater threat to America than a truck full of terrorists bent on doing us harm.

  • Neocon Dreams, American Nightmares

    August 10, 2006

    Four wars at once? Led by this crew? Are the people who run this country, enabled by neo-con pundits, dangerously out of their minds?

  • The Times Is Us

    July 13, 2006

    In wartime, you lose the luxury of choosing your allies: The Bush Administration's attacks on the New York Times are attacks on us all.

  • The Uses and Abuses of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

    June 21, 2006

    Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a really bad guy. But the Bush Administration's armchair warriors mythologized him into a self-fulfilling prophecy of insurgent terror.

  • Truth Is for 'Liberals'

    June 8, 2006

    Five years into the Bush Administration, the press corps still can't figure out how to handle the White House's primary media management tactic: lying.

  • Time Is on Their Side

    May 30, 2006

    Time magazine's new managing editor has inherited an editorial model that's under siege and a pundit lineup that tilts squarely to the right.

  • Three Liberal Lives

    May 11, 2006

    In praise of three giants of American liberalism: John Kenneth Galbraith, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg and the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr.

  • Bush's Other War

    April 27, 2006

    The FBI's bid to examine Jack Anderson's papers is the latest battle in the Bush Administration's war against the media.

  • AIPAC's Complaint

    April 13, 2006

    Analytical weaknesses in a controversial academic paper on the impact of the "Israel lobby" on US Mideast policy hinder its authors' attempt to pierce the wall of ignorance and intimidation erected around the debate.

  • Prescient and Patriotic: America's Honor Roll

    March 30, 2006

    Here's an honor roll of people who risked their positions and/or prestige to warn the nation of the Iraq War catastrophe.

  • Iraq: The Democrats' Dilemma

    March 16, 2006

    With Bush's popularity dropping and Iraq in chaos, Democrats must provide clear leadership without making themselves targets of political assassination by the right. How can they do that when the master story in the media depicts a party in disarray?

  • Letters

    March 8, 2006

  • With God on Our Side?

    March 2, 2006

    The right-wing hijacking of religion's public role in our political discourse is as undeniable as it is inappropriate, and represents one of liberalism's most serious problems.

  • The Gasbag Gap

    February 16, 2006

    Why expect political balance on talk TV when the networks are wedded to the belief that all the action is on the right?

  • Lies About Blowjobs, Bad. Wars? Not So Much.

    February 2, 2006

    Despite his lies and incompetence, Bush remains more popular with elite media than Clinton or any other political leader who sought to save us from the Iraq catastrophe. Why won't they connect the dots?

  • Never Mind the Truth...

    January 19, 2006

    Coverage of the Alito hearings revealed once again that there is no liberal bias in mainstream media.

  • 'Fool Me Once...'

    January 5, 2006

    The willingness of our most powerful media companies to defer to pressure from the White House is deeply disconcerting. In the name of national security, the Bush team repeatedly demonstrates its contempt for the media and for normative standards of truth.

2005

  • Another 9/11? Never Mind...

    December 15, 2005

    The 9/11 Commission's startling follow-up report that savages the Bush Administration's inadequate efforts to protect the country from terrorism was met by the media with a collective yawn. And so we remain vulnerable, amazed and, if sensate, terrified.

  • The Putsch at Public Broadcasting

    December 1, 2005

    With professionals at the top forced out and replaced by GOP fundraisers, the right-wing takeover of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is now plain to see. Though CPB's Inspector General has exposed former chair Kenneth Tomlinson's ethical transgressions, what else are they hiding?

  • The Lies That Bind

    November 17, 2005

    Lack of candor is not surprising from Bush or Ahmad Chalabi, but why does the New York Times continue to struggle with the truth about Judith Miller? The Gray Lady might solve the problem by banning anonymous Administration sources in its news reports. If they're going to lie to us anyway, why not under their own names?

  • Letters

    November 10, 2005 Subscribe

  • The GOP Takes a Beating

    November 9, 2005

    As Democrats gloat over two gubernatorial wins and the defeat in California of Gov. Arnold's intiatives, the GOP approaches off-year elections weighed down by Bush's baggage.

  • Can We Talk?

    November 2, 2005

    Liberals need to find a means to bridge the gap between Americans' belief in liberal solutions and their willingness to trust liberals to enact them.

  • Corrupt, Incompetent and 'Off Center'

    October 20, 2005

    With leading Republicans facing the slammer and Bush in a tailspin, fate has given liberals a huge opportunity. Americans already share our values--we need a new language to help connect peoples' deepest needs to the liberal vision.

  • The First Time Was Tragedy...

    October 6, 2005

    As the Bush Administration's incompetence turns Iraq into a terrorist training camp, Americans should look to FDR, who waged war for unavoidable threats, not ideology, while still fostering good will among US allies.

  • New Orleans Is Us

    September 22, 2005

    New Orleans was not an unpredictable disaster--it was a model for the incompetence of the Bush Administration. And when the next disaster comes, we will all be under water.

  • Found in the Flood

    September 8, 2005

    The most remarkable aspect of the media's treatment of the hurricane coverage was the return of the poor, in coverage that was neither condescending nor condemnatory.

  • Tramps Like Us

    September 2, 2005

    Thirty summers ago, Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run exploded the cynicism and complacency of a morally exhausted era and gave a new generation reason to believe in rock and roll.

  • The Red State Times, Continued

    August 25, 2005

    The so-called liberal New York Times bashed Bill Clinton every chance it got, and whitewashes Ed Meese. Go figure.

  • The Times, It Is A-Ragin'

    July 28, 2005

    Even so-called liberal publications frequently tilt rightward.

  • Lying Liars & the Presidents Who Employ Them

    June 29, 2005

    The media passed along without prejudice Karl Rove's deliberate distortions of Richard Durbin's words.

  • Clinton Agonistes

    June 16, 2005

    John Harris's history of the Clinton Administration deserves much of the praise it has received, but it ignores the media's anti-Clinton animus.

  • In Re Newsweek: Which Side Are You On?

    June 2, 2005

    In its campaign against Newsweek, the Bush Administration seeks to undermine already faltering public confidence.

  • Cowboys and Eggheads

    May 19, 2005

    Why do Americans trust Bush and the Republicans on national security issues?

  • What Would Dewey Do?

    May 5, 2005

    Robert Novak has never given the impression that he cared much for the virtues of civility.

  • Bush's War on the Press

    April 21, 2005

    Our independent media is under attack.

  • 'Case Closed'

    April 7, 2005

    In a more just universe, the right-wingers would give reporters the credit they so richly deserve.

  • Letters

    March 31, 2005 Subscribe

  • In Re Rather: The Target Is Journalism

    March 24, 2005

  • Anti-Semite? Self-Hating Jew? Moi?

    March 9, 2005

  • The Pajama Game

    February 24, 2005

  • Better Red Than Dead?

    February 10, 2005

  • Letters

    February 3, 2005 Subscribe

  • Fantasy Island

    January 27, 2005

  • Pundit Limbo: How Low Can They Go?

    January 13, 2005

    What do Robert Novak and Armstrong Williams have to do before they're completely discredited?

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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This week, what it all meant. Nation Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel on Barack Obama's victory and the coming battle for progressive change we can believe in. (13mb mp3)

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