POST-9/11 SECRETS, CONFIDENTIALITY, CONTROL:
IN A FOUR-HOUR SPECIAL, FRONTLINE INVESTIGATES
THE FUTURE OF THE NEWS
FRONTLINE presents
NEWS WAR
Tuesdays, February 13, 20, 27, and
March 27, 2007, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS
www.pbs.org/frontline/newswar
"The battle between the White House and the national media is the battle over who controls the national agenda," commentator Patrick Buchanan tells FRONTLINE. Mark McKinnon, former media adviser to President George W. Bush, agrees: "The Washington press corps for years thought that unless you talked to The New York Times and CBS, that you weren't talking to the American public. Well, that's just not the case anymore." McKinnon feels that it is a White House prerogative to choose its own communications strategy: "Presidents ... ought to determine who they want to talk to and when they want to talk to them," he says. But William Safire, author and former New York Times political columnist, fears that hostilities between the administration and the press could threaten the media's ability to hold government accountable. "The great check and balance that was built into the Constitution is under challenge," he says. "You've got to have a relationship between the government and the press that's adversarial, but not an enemy."
In more than 80 interviews with key figures in the print, broadcast and electronic media, and with unequaled, behind-the-scenes access to some of today's most important news organizations, FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman examines the challenges facing the mainstream news media and the media's reaction in News War, airing Tuesdays, February 13, 20 and 27, and March 27, 2007, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings). In this four-hour special, Bergman traces the recent history of American journalism, from the Nixon administration's attacks on the media to the post-Watergate popularity of the press, to new obstacles presented by the war on terror to changing economics in the media business and the Internet.
