Phil Donahue

Latest Articles

Dawg days

Despite gains by blogs, podcasts, and social-networking Web sites, television is still our dominant mass medium.
The 2008 campaign is turning out to be our first-ever American Idol election
By STEVEN STARK | September 03, 2008

Will Harvard drop acid again?

In a moment of delightful whimsy in the annals of drug history, Albert Hofmann, after purposely ingesting LSD for the first time, rode his bicycle home and experienced all manner of beatific and hellish visions.
Psychedelic research returns to Crimsonland
By PETER BEBERGAL | May 28, 2008

Body of War

Tomas Young volunteered for the US Army right after 9/11, hoping to be sent to Afghanistan and chase down Osama bin Laden.
Poetic Americana
By GERALD PEARY | April 09, 2008

Jeff Cohen on the weird and disturbing world of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC

In his new book, Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media , Jeff Cohen writes about his years with cable news channels as a pilgrim who’s returned from a strange and hostile land.
Cable nit
By DAN KENNEDY | September 18, 2006

Listing forward

Like anyone who works a specific beat — sportswriters and political writers come to mind — media critics acquire lots of impressions, opinions, and stray observations that never actually make it into print, and yet they are worth musing over.
Sometimes a media critic just wants to herd a few cats
By MARK JURKOWITZ | May 03, 2006

Letters to the Boston editor, February 3, 2006

Liberals factoring in Bill O'Reilly; a cop sticks up for the anti-Stop Snitchin' judge
Shrill O'Reilly
By PHOENIX LETTERS | February 02, 2006

Hostile encounters

Many well-intentioned guests simply end up befuddled and battered after entering a world in which Bill O’Reilly shrewdly selects his targets and then carpet-bombs them.
Bill O’Reilly is famous for attacking guests who dare disagree with him. So why do liberals keep going on his show?
By MARK JURKOWITZ | January 19, 2006