Nicholas Kristof's column was almost entirely wrong or unsupported. Yet it turned out to be just the opening salvo of a series of high-profile news reports exposing America’s alleged plague of skyrocketing disability benefits.
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Jun
01
2013
Disabled Are New Target for Charges of Cheating
NYT, NPR lead campaign to cut SSI
By Neil deMause
May
30
2013
Immigrants Missing From Immigration Debate
Political issue or economic factor--but not human beings
By Eunji Kim
When Extra! analyzed immigration reform coverage, the majority of sources from all networks were white male politicians born in the United States without personal ties to immigration. The voices of immigrants or activists were mostly absent.
May
01
2013
Whose Police State?
National media focus on 2nd Amendment over 4th Amendment
National media focus on 2nd Amendment over 4th Amendment.
May
01
2013
When Bigotry Is 'Balance'
Media still worried homophobes aren't being heard
By Julie Hollar
As the Supreme Court finished hearing oral arguments on two same-sex marriage cases, the Wall Street Journal editorial page (3/27/13) proclaimed what has become a mantra of the right on this subject: The liberal media frame opponents of marriage equality as bigots. America’s cultural and media elites are attempting to browbeat the High Court into coercing the country into recognizing same-sex marriage by casting opponents as bigots for holding a position that President Obama held less than a year ago. Murdoch’s Journal is woefully misguided on two counts. It’s hard to make the case that the most prominent arguments against [...]
Apr
01
2013
Letters to the Editor
'Rising Standard' in Venezuela? Extra! (Soundbites, 3/13) disparages Jon Lee Anderson’s article in the New Yorker by ignoring the fact that the New Yorker is not in the business of stretching the truth and is known for very thorough factchecking. I have always had a great deal of respect for the New Yorker, as I do Extra!. You mention a “rapidly rising standard of living” in Venezuela. That may be true, or it may not be true, but it is definitely not rising rapidly for everyone, as you can see from reading Anderson’s article, which tells of a nightmare existence [...]
Apr
01
2013
In Death as in Life, Chavez Target of Media Scorn
His independence, help for Venezuela's poor will not be forgiven
By Peter Hart
Venezuela’s left-wing populist President Hugo Chávez died on Tuesday, March 5, after a two-year battle with cancer. If world leaders were judged by the sheer volume of corporate media vitriol and misinformation about their policies, Chávez would be in a class of his own. Shortly after Chávez won his first election in 1998, the U.S. government deemed him a threat to U.S. interests—an image U.S. media eagerly played up. When a coup engineered by Venezuelan business and media elites removed Chávez from power, many leading U.S outlets praised the move (Extra!, 6/02). The New York Times (4/13/02), calling it a [...]
Apr
01
2013
Soundbites
Spinning the Sequester "Sequester Spin Gets Ahead of Reality" was the headline on a Washington Post piece (2/28/13) that cautioned that "no one really knows how bad things are likely to get" if the forced budget cuts go through. Take claims about, say, teacher layoffs with a grain of salt, the Post advised, and remember that state and local governments could "shift money around" to blunt the impact on, for instance, the Meals on Wheels program that delivers food to the homebound elderly. The paper's Karen Tumulty and Lyndsey Layton explained that such concerns mainly reflect "the impulse of officials [...]
Apr
01
2013
Year of the Woman, Take Two
Media define 'progress' as 1 Senate seat in 5
If you relied on major media outlets for coverage of last November’s elections, you could be forgiven for thinking women were poised to rule the country in 2013. “From Congress to Halls of State... Women Rule,” the New York Times (1/1/13) trumpeted. “Big Gains for Women in 2012,” shouted CNN (11/7/12). “113th Congress Welcomes Benches Full of Women,” PBS (11/16/12) declared. Salon (11/6/12) was confidently matter-of-fact—“Another Year of the Woman”—as was Mother Jones (11/6/12): “2012: The Year of the Woman Senator.” MSNBC (“Is 2012 the Year of the Woman?,” 3/15/12) and the Washington Post (“With Senate Wins for Elizabeth Warren [...]
