“The late New York University media scholar Neil Postman once said about America, ‘We are the best entertained least informed society in the world.’ That was twenty-five years ago and after two-plus decades of more deregulation and the growth of conglomerates in the media, that trend has continued.” Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff will discuss how corporate news media distracts Americans from crucial information by replacing it with a steady diet “of tabloidized, trivialized, and outright useless information laden with personal anecdotes, scandals, and gossip.”

For instance, while news outlets were obsessing over celebrity Anna Nicole Smith’s untimely death in early 2007, most big media giants were missing a far more important story: The U.S. ambassador to Iraq misplaced $12 billion in shrink-wrapped 100-dollar bills that were flown to Baghdad.

Join us to find out what more there has been in 2010. Please RSVP to netfa@ips-dc.org.