Media

We are excited to share the news that Currents of Awareness (COA) News has merged with Toward Freedom. This merger will allow Toward Freedom to grow and expand its coverage and resources. TF will continue its regular publishing schedule and focus at TowardFreedom.com while drawing from COA's Independent News Affiliates Network. COA News and Toward Freedom have been collaborating for years, and this merger is a continuation of that solidarity and teamwork.

A number of recent developments have dramatically changed the military and political landscape of Latin America. While some electoral victories in Latin America signal a regional shift to the left, Washington continues to expand its military and navy presence throughout the hemisphere. This year Toward Freedom editor Benjamin Dangl received a Project Censored Award for his coverage of Washington's intervention in Latin America. Each year Project Censored selects the top 25 most important censored news stories chosen out of hundreds of articles.

Writer Danny Schechter once quipped that what Ben & Jerry's is to ice cream and Elvis was to hip-shaking, Robert W. McChesney is to media analysis. In his news book, The Political Economy of Media, McChesney writes, "Today we understand that media systems are the result of complex political economic factors and crucial policy decisions. The need for engaged scholarship has never been more pronounced, in the United States and worldwide. This is our moment in the sun, our golden opportunity, and as political economists of the media we must seize it."

Presidential elections have been media spectacles for almost 50 years, roughly since television became the national drug. One landmark 1960 production, arguably the first televised "presidential death match," pitted Jack Kennedy, an Arthurian figure to be sure, against Dick Nixon, doing a creepy Richard III imitation. Their TV debate is said to have turned the tide, but the election itself was questionable, and high Camelot hopes were cut short by assassination and war.