Briefing: Katrina vanden Heuvel on Confronting the Media’s Flaws

Briefing: Katrina vanden Heuvel on Confronting the Media’s Flaws

Briefing: Katrina vanden Heuvel on Confronting the Media’s Flaws

Faced with the cynical coverage of the mainstream media, what can ordinary Americans do to work toward an alternative that more accurately reflects the problems facing our country today?

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"Average people must look at the screens and see the disconnect," says Nation editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel: "it’s not left vs. right, it’s top-down. It’s establishment vs. people." So says Katrina vanden Heuvel of the average TV news show. Faced with the cynical coverage of the mainstream media, what can ordinary Americans do to work toward an alternative that more accurately reflects the problems facing our country today?

Katrina joins Laura Flanders on The Nation on Grit TV to explore the ramifications of the impending end of unemployment benefits for millions of Americans out of work, the members of Congress who will continue the fight for the people, real progressive taxation and what Obama can do with his executive power to get around a gridlocked Congress.

The Nation on GRIT TV is a weekly video collaboration between The Nation and GRIT TV with Laura Flanders. Watch for Monday briefings, Wednesday commentaries, weekend conversations and more at TheNation.com. For full half-hour episodes of The Nation on GRIT TV, or local television air times visit www.grittv.org.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

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Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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