http://fair.org The national media watch group Thu, 20 Jun 2013 00:11:51 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 The national media watch group FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting clean The national media watch group http://www.fair.org/images/CounterSpin.jpg http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/ http://fair.org/slider/disabled-are-new-target-for-charges-of-cheating/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=disabled-are-new-target-for-charges-of-cheating http://fair.org/slider/disabled-are-new-target-for-charges-of-cheating/#comments Sat, 01 Jun 2013 04:01:29 +0000 FAIR http://fair.org/?p=5566864 http://fair.org/slider/disabled-are-new-target-for-charges-of-cheating/feed/ 11 Disability,Extra! June 2013,Neil deMause 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. 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. FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting clean http://fair.org/slider/immigrants-missing-from-immigration-debate/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=immigrants-missing-from-immigration-debate http://fair.org/slider/immigrants-missing-from-immigration-debate/#comments Thu, 30 May 2013 04:01:47 +0000 FAIR http://fair.org/?p=5566868 http://fair.org/slider/immigrants-missing-from-immigration-debate/feed/ 1 Extra! June 2013,Immigration 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. 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. FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting clean http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/whose-police-state/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=whose-police-state http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/whose-police-state/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 04:01:59 +0000 FAIR http://fair.org/?p=5566263 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/whose-police-state/feed/ 3 Crime and Punishment,Extra! May 2013,Race and Racism National media focus on 2nd Amendment over 4th Amendment. National media focus on 2nd Amendment over 4th Amendment. FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting clean http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/when-bigotry-is-balance/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=when-bigotry-is-balance http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/when-bigotry-is-balance/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 04:01:05 +0000 FAIR http://fair.org/?p=5566261 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/when-bigotry-is-balance/feed/ 1 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/letters-to-the-editor-53/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=letters-to-the-editor-53 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/letters-to-the-editor-53/#comments Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:01:57 +0000 FAIR http://fair.org/?p=5567076 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/letters-to-the-editor-53/feed/ 0 Extra! April 2013 '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. '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 for most of the lower classes. Violent crime, corruption and poverty seem to be at all-time highs in Venezuela, at least in Caracas. Anderson documents this thoroughly. I have a feeling that the standard of living for poor people in the city of Caracas is now much worse than it ever was under Chavez’s predecessors. I believe Chavez is possibly mentally unstable, and his fascistic tendencies have destroyed a once-prosperous country. Granted, he has instituted some social reforms, to his credit, but his authoritarian politics and economic ignorance have been disastrous. It is perfectly obvious that Jon Lee Anderson risked his life on multiple occasions to get his story, and for you to denigrate his article based on what is possibly (probably?) a rumor (no one really knows) is not something I would expect to see in Extra!. There is no proof that there is a “rising standard of living” for everyone in Venezuela, and Anderson’s article goes far in the area of doubt with reference to that subject. Stuart A. Miner Vero Beach, Fla.   The editor replies: The rising standard of living in Venezuela under Chavez isn't a "rumor"; it's based on standard economic statistics. See the Center for Economic and Policy Research (9/12) for a good evidence-based discussion of the Venezuelan economy.   'Unrelentingly Dyspeptic' FAIR's headlines seem to me one bitter grumble after another. There is a more complicated and interesting terrain to be explored and analyzed in the American media, where a serious struggle between a center-left and an increasingly aggressive right wing is taking place. FAIR brings to mind the dogmatic blindness of the German Communist Party in the years preceding the triumph of Hitler--in their complete rejection of a united front with the Social Democrats.  My leftist parents saw the latter as "social fascists," and were loyal to this Manichean view of the world right into the '60s. I came into adulthood in the New Left, and I'm continually impressed at how progressive voices have since made their way into many kinds of media, old and new, and have achieved a serious measure of power in the Democratic Party. The old TV networks no longer have a useful monopoly on people's attention. Occupy was, early on, fully operational in cyberspace, and ultimately well-covered by mass media. Occupy's in-your-face class consciousness actually changed the political conversation in this country. MSNBC and Current TV and the primetime kings of comedy on Comedy Central keep a daily spotlight on the more obvious failures of U.S. imperial project and the injustices of unregulated capitalism. Even the New York Times and the New Yorker are more comprehensive in the perspectives they publish than one would know from FAIR's unrelentingly dyspeptic critique. May these words contribute something useful to your own discussions. Anita Frankel Los Angeles, Calif. Public Affairs Director, KPFK, L.A. 1978-1980 Public Affairs Co-Director, KPFA, Berkeley 1974-1978 Extra! April 2013 FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting clean http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/in-death-as-in-life-chavez-target-of-media-scorn-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-death-as-in-life-chavez-target-of-media-scorn-2 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/in-death-as-in-life-chavez-target-of-media-scorn-2/#comments Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:01:46 +0000 FAIR http://fair.org/?p=5565256 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/in-death-as-in-life-chavez-target-of-media-scorn-2/feed/ 0 Extra! April 2013,Hugo Chavez,Latin America,Official Agendas,Venezuela 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, 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 “resignation,” declared that “Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator.” The Chicago Tribune (4/14/02) cheered the removal of a leader who had been “praising Osama bin Laden”—an absurdly false charge. But that kind of reckless rhetoric was evidently permissible in media discussions about Chávez. Seven years later, CNN (1/15/09) hosted a discussion with Demo-cratic strategist Doug Schoen, where he and host John Roberts discussed whether or not Chávez was worse than Osama bin Laden. As Schoen put it, “He’s given Al-Qaeda and Hamas an open invitation to come to Caracas.” There were almost no limits to over-heated media verbiage about Chávez. In a single news article, Newsweek (11/2/09) managed to compare him to Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin. (Chávez had built a movie studio, which is the sort of thing dictators apparently do.) ABC (World News, 10/7/12) called him a “fierce enemy of the United States,” the Washington Post (10/16/06) an “autocratic demagogue.” Fox News (12/5/05) said that his government was “really Communism”—despite the fact that he was repeatedly returned to office in internationally certified elections (Extra!, 11–12/06) that Jimmy Carter deemed “the best in the world” (Guardian, 10/3/12). Apart from alarmist claims about terrorism and his growing military threat to the region (FAIR Blog, 4/1/07), media often tried to make a simpler case: Chávez wasn’t good for Venezuelans. The supposed economic ruin in Venezuela was a staple of the coverage. The Washington Post editorial page (1/5/13) complained of “the economic pain caused by Mr. Chávez,” the man who has “wrecked their once-prosperous country.” And a recent New York Times piece (12/13/12) tallied some of the hassles of daily life, declaring that such frustrations are typical in Venezuela, for rich and poor alike, and yet President Hugo Chávez has managed to stay in office for nearly 14 years, winning over a significant majority of the public with his outsize personality, his free-spending of state resources and his ability to convince Venezuelans that the Socialist revolution he envisions will make their lives better. Of course, Venezuelans might feel that Chávez already had improved their lives (FAIR Blog, 12/13/12), with poverty cut in half, increased availability of food and healthcare, expanded educational oppor-tunities and a real effort to build grassroots democratic institutions. (For more of this, read Greg Grandin’s piece in the Nation—3/5/13.) Those facts of Venezuelan life were not entirely unacknowledged by U.S. media. But these policies, reflecting new national priorities about who should benefit from the country’s oil wealth, were treated as an unscrupulous ploy of Chávez’s to curry favor with the poor. As the Washington Post (2/24/13) sneered, Chávez won “unconditional support from the poverty-stricken masses” by “doling out jobs to supporters and showering the poor with gifts.” NPR’s All Things Considered (3/5/13) told listeners that “millions of Venezuelans loved him because he showered the poor with social programs.” Redistributing your nation’s wealth is bad enough, but critizing the American empire is unforgivable. CBS Evening News (1/8/13) recently put it, “Chávez has made a career out of bashing the United States.” But one wonders how friendly any U.S. FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting clean http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/soundbites-104/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=soundbites-104 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/soundbites-104/#comments Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:01:38 +0000 FAIR http://fair.org/?p=5567085 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/soundbites-104/feed/ 0 Extra! April 2013 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, 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 to resort to melodrama when they are faced with budget cuts."  That's how the Post wants you to treat warnings about domestic budget cuts--with a shrug. But when a group of Pentagon officials went to Capitol Hill to warn that military sequester cuts would mean "the wolf is at the door," that we're going to return to "a hollow Army" with forces "degraded and unready," the Post (2/13/13) just reprinted those claims without dissent or skepticism. Even though the current round of reductions looks to leave military spending around 2006 levels, the lead on Steve Vogel's article highlighted the claim that "the looming sequestration cuts represent a dire and unpre­cedented threat to the U.S. military." If the Post thought there was any "melodrama" at all in Defense Department officials' charges, they didn't give readers a clue.   Climate Change & Other 'Pet Issues' The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza (2/10/13) offered some State of the Union advice for Barack Obama: He should "spend the bulk of his time talking about the deficit," which Cillizza called "the issue of the day"--citing a Pew Center poll (1/24/13) that actually showed people less concerned about the deficit than they were about the economy or jobs. (The Post's own polling--8/21/12--found people rating the deficit as less important than either jobs or healthcare.) And what shouldn't Obama talk about? What the Post called "pet issues"--things like gun control, immigration...and climate change. Apparently catastrophic global warming doesn't poll well, so he should give it only "a passing reference or two."   Minimal Division After Barack Obama proposed raising the U.S. minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.00 an hour, the New York Times (2/13/13) said the idea was "sure to be politically divisive." It's actually a very popular idea; one survey of the American public, taken right after the last election (Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, 11/12/12), found 69 percent support for raising the minimum wage, vs. 26 percent opposition. Don't look for the Times--which as late as the 1980s (1/14/87) was editorializing in favor of eliminating the minimum wage altogether--to suggest that siding with the one out of four who opposes a hike might be "divisive."   Confuse Republicans by Imitating Them I mean, he doesn't think much of Republicans in terms of their approach or being able to deal with them. But he can also confuse the opposition a little bit if he would take the reins and say, "Look, we are going to have to do big spending cuts and here's why. It's ultimately helpful for the solvency of the country," even if he has to push back against some Democrats. --NBC's David Gregory (Meet the Press, 1/27/13)   Get Rich Quick! In a New York Times op-ed (2/20/13), Paul Ryan adviser Yuval Levin attempted to find "common ground" on the entitlement issue: "Both sides should agree at least to spend less money on the wealthy." He proposes that the richest third of Social Security recipients should get no cost-of-living adjustments on their benefits, while the middle third get half the adjustment, and only the bottom third get the full annual increase. Who are these "wealthy" people who would be getting a benefit cut equal either to the rate of inflation every year, or to half that rate? According to the SSA, about 34 percent of people over 65 have family incomes of $50,000. FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting clean http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/year-of-the-woman-take-two/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=year-of-the-woman-take-two http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/year-of-the-woman-take-two/#comments Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:01:27 +0000 FAIR http://fair.org/?p=5565285 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/year-of-the-woman-take-two/feed/ 0 Elections 2012,Extra! April 2013,Sexism 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. 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 and Others, a New Year of the Woman?,” 11/7/12) were more tentative but still optimistic. According to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, 98 women are currently serving in the United States Congress, occupying only 18 percent of congressional seats: 78 in the House and a record 20 in the Senate. Yet according to CNN’s Halimah Abdullah (11/7/12), “In some quarters, Election Day 2012 turned into ladies night.” Of New Hampshire’s status as the first state to send an all-female delegation to Washington, the New York Times’ Katharine Q. Seelye (1/1/13) wryly noted, “And the matriarchy does not end there.” Just over 20 years ago, 1992 was dubbed the “Year of the Woman” (Extra!, 9/92) when congressional elections tripled the number of women then serving in the Senate—to six. (Forty-eight women served in the House.) The number of women in Congress has less than doubled since those “watershed” elections. At the rate of progress we’ve maintained over the last 20 years, it will take American women until 2090 to achieve equal representation in Congress. In other words, men may not need to seek refuge from the coming “matriarchy” just yet. Perhaps the media are overawed by such paltry gains because women are comparably poorly represented in the upper echelons of most media outlets. In 2012, women represented 19.1 percent of local radio news directors and 30.2 percent of local TV news directors (RTNDA, 10/22/12). In newspaper newsrooms, women are only 34.2 percent of supervisors (ASNE, 2012). And only twelve women solo hosts and three women co-hosts appeared on 2012’s “Heavy Hundred” (4/12), Talkers magazine’s list of the 100 most important radio talk show hosts in America. Even small gains for women likely feel like a rising tide to reporters ensconced in a boys’ club of their own. “These women did not rise to the top together overnight.... Each toiled in the political vineyards...and campaigned hard for her job,” observed the Times’ Seelye (1/1/13). Salon’s Irin Carmon (11/6/12) quoted Jess McIntosh of the feminist PAC EMILY’s List: “We had done the decades of work to find these women.” Added Carmon, “No easy feat, since women generally need to be asked to run several times.” The implication is that the women who ran for office prior to 2012 didn’t campaign hard or toil long enough. If it’s true that women must often be cajoled into running, why not ask “why”? Is it because they are generally less ambitious than men? Or do they quite reasonably consider politics a hostile environment? Global context is also notably scarce in the rosy coverage of this second “Year of the Woman.” The U.S. is currently ranked number 55 in the category of “political empowerment” on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2012. Women are better represented in the national legislatures of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Estonia and Honduras than they are in the U.S. Congress (InterParliamentary Union, 12/31/12). But aside from notable exceptions like Nina Burleigh at the New York Observer (11/3/12) and Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones (11/20/12), few mentioned such inconvenient facts. Did most in the media decline to raise this point for fear of being labeled unpatriotic? Or did they simply assume that women’s political prospects were even dimmer in other parts of the world? FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting clean http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/keeping-the-governments-secrets/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=keeping-the-governments-secrets http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/keeping-the-governments-secrets/#comments Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:01:16 +0000 FAIR http://fair.org/?p=5565259 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/keeping-the-governments-secrets/feed/ 5 Extra! April 2013,Media Self-Censorship,Official Agendas,War and Militarism Withholding important news over supposed national security concerns is nothing new. And in many cases, no official request is even needed—the decision-makers seem to have internalized the notion that keeping the government’s secrets is part of their job. Withholding important news over supposed national security concerns is nothing new. And in many cases, no official request is even needed—the decision-makers seem to have internalized the notion that keeping the government’s secrets is part of their job. FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting clean http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/celebrating-french-intervention-in-mali/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=celebrating-french-intervention-in-mali http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/celebrating-french-intervention-in-mali/#comments Mon, 01 Apr 2013 04:01:15 +0000 FAIR http://fair.org/?p=5565251 http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/celebrating-french-intervention-in-mali/feed/ 0 Africa,Extra! April 2013,France,Mali,Terrorism,War and Militarism The French military commenced Operation Serval against separatist rebels in Northern Mali on January 11, 2013. The air and ground intervention was undertaken with the cooperation and support of the United States, The French military commenced Operation Serval against separatist rebels in Northern Mali on January 11, 2013. The air and ground intervention was undertaken with the cooperation and support of the United States, as well as several European and African... FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting clean