Bill Moyers & Company S1E6: Decoding the Campaigns at Merge Left

Bill Moyers & Company S1E6: Decoding the Campaigns [New]

Decoding political misinformation with Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Also, a conversation and readings with National Medal of Arts winner Rita Dove.:

1. Kathleen Hall Jamieson on Campaign Misinformation: Political communication expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson decodes political misinformation campaigns of 2012.

2. Rita Dove on the Power of Poetry: Through performances and conversation, Bill Moyers and the former Poet Laureate explore American history, language, culture, and ideas.

Episode description:

Decoding the Campaigns

February 17, 2012

We’re saturated with deceptive political advertising — aided and abetted now with spending by citizens, corporations and super PACs that seems to know no bounds. Add to that relatively cheap “buys” on the media landscape including television, the web, print media and social networks, and there’s no place for the electorate to escape.

But help is on the way. This weekend on Moyers & Company, Bill asks political communication expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson to decode the political misinformation campaigns of 2012 thus far. Jamieson runs the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, including the sites FactCheck.org and FlackCheck.org.

The show then moves from politics to poetry as Bill welcomes former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, who this week received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama. Dove was the youngest and the first African American to be named poet laureate in 1993. Through an intimate conversation and select readings, Moyers and Dove explore American history, language, culture and ideas. They also talk about the responsibility — and controversy — that comes with editing a prestigious anthology, as Dove was recently tasked for The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry.

Note: I’m not sure yet if today’s ‘Bill Moyers & Company’ episode is worth front-paging, so I didn’t front-page it. If you think I should do so, post a message.