Frank Rich

Renowned columnist on his book The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina. Houston, Texas, Wortham Center, October 29, 2006.

Presentation part 1. Bush administration: "We create our own reality." 30:36

More Frank Rich Videos

See video

Presentation part 2. White House manipulations "truthiness" of new media culture. 29:31

See video

Q&A. Real reason for Iraq War, inarticulate Bush, anger in culture, new trends in culture. 27:32

See video

SHORT. First Gulf War on CNN, 24/7 mediathon becomes news form, opens to propaganda. 3:07

See video

SHORT. News redefined when entertainment conglomerates bought TV news organizations. 5:39

Frank Rich | October 29, 2006 | Wortham Center | The Progressive Forum

Background

Frank Rich serves as Writer-at-Large for New York magazine, writing monthly on politics and culture, and editing a special monthly section anchored by his essay. He is also a commentator on nymag.com, engaging in regular dialogues on the news of the week. He joined the magazine following a distinguished career at The New York Times where he had been an op-ed columnist since 1994 focusing on politics and popular culture, his position when he appeared at The Progressive Forum. He was previously the paper's chief drama critic from 1980 to 1993. As op-ed columnist, his weekly 1,500 word essay helped inaugurate the expanded opinion pages that The Times introduced in the Sunday "Week in Review section in 2005. From 1999 to 2003, he was also senior writer for The New York Times Magazine, the dual title was a first for The Times. Rich is also a creative consultant to HBO where is an executive producer of two projects, Veep, a comedy series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and a documentary on Stephen Sondheim. A native of Washington, D.C., he graduated from Harvard where he was editorial chairman of The Harvard Crimson. The Greatest Story Ever Sold provides a step-by-step chronicle of how the Bush administration's highest priority was not to vanquish Al Qaeda after 9/11, but to fashion a war against an enemy who did not attack America, Iraq, and creating a propaganda Presidency. His other books include Hot Seat: Theater Criticism for The New York Times, 1980-1993 (1998) and Ghost Light: A Memoir (2000). This past speaker page shares his podium presentation as well as the Q&A.

Thanks to videographer:
Gotham Image Works

For citing this website as a source: ProgressiveForumHouston.org

Thanks to Frank Rich for permission to post the entire event video on our website which we've edited into segments. We welcome visitors to share this exciting educational material. However to ensure appropriate context, our video segments can only be viewed on this page. The convenient share buttons will enable you to share this entire page.