Norman Solomon and Loretta Alper are guests on Sunday's Media Matters : Indybay

The weekly radio program Media Matters features host Bob McChesney in conversation with a variety of guests.

Bob McChesney is a research professor in the Institute of Communications Research and the Graduate School of Information and Library Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“The media are central to all our lives,” he says. “Yet the media are the most frequently misunderstood parts of our lives. We want to help people understand the role of media in society.”

Every Sunday Media Matters' audio stream is accessible on the internet at 11 am Pacific Time and is normally archived and downloadable on Monday.

When live, listeners may call the program with comments or questions.

The toll-free telephone number to participate is 1-800-222-9455.

THIS WEEK'S GUESTS:
(From Media Matters)

This week our guests are Norman Solomon and Loretta Alper, discussing the new documentary "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death."

Solomon is a regular guest on Media Matters, and a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics. He has been writing the weekly "Media Beat" column since 1992. War Made Easy is based on Solomon's 2005 book of the same name.

Alper has worked with the Media Education Foundation since 2000, and is the producer of War Made Easy.

War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from LBJ to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.

http://www.warmadeeasythemovie.org/

There will be a free local screening of War Made Easy in Champaign, IL at 7pm on August 1, at the Community United Church (805 S. Sixth Street). The screening is hosted by Just Foreign Policy:

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org

Here is some local information about Bay Area screenings and more courtesy Dan Bacher and Indybay.

LAST WEEK'S GUEST:

The editor of the Progressive Magazine, Matthew Rothschild, will discussed his new book "You Have No Rights."

SUNDAY MORNING'S STREAMING PROGRAM AND ALL PAST SHOWS ARE AVAILABLE AT THE MEDIA MATTERS WEB SITE: