Ben Bagdikian, noted media critic, dies at 96

Ben Bagdikian, noted media critic, dies at 96

Ben H. Bagdikian, a noted media critic and former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley, died Friday at his home in Berkeley.

Mr. Bagdikian had a role as well in providing the famed Pentagon Papers to the media and to Congress.

“What we are seeing now is a decrease in hard reporting ... and an increase of soft entertainment features,” he said in a television interview in 1999, referring to a concentration of power in media monopolies.