"You don't need enemies when you have friends like this." (video)

GRITtv (MediaChannel), with video (24:41):

Ryan Lizza’s 18-page story on how Chicago shaped Barack Obama in the New Yorker has been getting far less attention than the magazine’s cover. On our media roundtable the New Yorker’s senior editor Hendrik Hertzberg faces off with Media Channel’s Danny Schechter over the magazine’s attempt to upend the many falsehoods about the Illinois Senator. Is it just another part of our media of distraction or is it something else—a way of poking fun at Fox News et al.? Deconstruction or destruction?

Air America’s Logan Nakyanzi Pollard says that with such dangerous ideas in circulation the well-respected magazine is on shaky ground. Remnick himself in an unusual interview defending his decision says that, “it’s not a satire about Obama - it’s a satire about the distortions and misconceptions and prejudices about Obama.” Does it work? Find out here on our media roundtable.

Meanwhile, the economy is collapsing and the media seem incapable of covering the institutions at the heart of the crisis.

Also the best and worst from last week, using the media to destabilize Iran, and why papers outside the US are getting the big stories.

Barack Obama