FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
The national media watch group
Did Barack Obama's National Defense University speech signal a sea change in White House terrorism policy? That depended on who was doing the listening. We'll talk with Pardiss Kebriaei of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
And Bob McChesney talks about his new book Digital Disconnect, and why understanding capitalism is essential to understanding the development of the internet.
This week on CounterSpin: The Boston bombings were labeled as terrorist attacks almost from the start. But what does that label mean, and how is it used? We'll talk to Cal State University of Chico professor Beau Grosscup about how the term is used—and perhaps misused.
Also on CounterSpin today, much of the town of West, Texas was destroyed in an explosion at the West Fertilizer plant on April 18.Famed EPA whistleblower Hugh Kaufman joins us to critique media portrayals of the disaster as merely a matter of regulatory oversights.
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 states. U.S. press reporting has provided a simplistic account of the intervention as a heroic effort to protect the civilized world against Islamic terrorist threats. What is missing from this image is how the past interventions of the “War on Terror” helped cause the Malian crisis in the first place. A Washington Post editorial (1/12/13) claimed the French were simply trying [...]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The one year anniversary of the NAVY Seal raid that killed Osama bin Laden brought us a prime time behind the scenes at the White House account on NBC, leaks from bin Laden intelligence files about his new terror schemes and a tiresome debate over whether Barack Obama could claim credit for the killing-- and if so, how. But there are bigger questions--namely, do the stories that surround the killing of Osama bin Laden add up? Gareth Porter challenges some of the official mythmaking in a new piece for Truthout he'll join us to [...]
(UPDATE: The Times public editor has notified FAIR about his email response to readers critical of the February 6 story. You can read it at the FAIR Blog). In two stories this month, New York Times journalists allowed anonymous government officials to smear critics as terrorists and terrorist sympathizers--a shocking violation of the paper's explicit rules against allowing anonymity to be a cover for attacks. In a February 22 story about Khader Adnan--the Palestinian hunger striker challenging the Israeli practice of holding prisoners without trial--reporter Isabel Kershner wrote: An Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, called the deal [...]
The release of a United Nations report on Iran’s nuclear program in early November was, according to much of the corporate media, the long-awaited confirmation of something many outlets had already treated as established fact: Iran is working on a nuclear weapon. You would have a hard time figuring out that the report from the International Atomic Energy Agency did not actually arrive at that conclusion. As has happened with past IAEA reports on Iran, some coverage presented a sneak preview of the supposed conclusions, based on leaks from sources intent on portraying Iran in a more negative light. On [...]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: When Barack Obama ordered armed military advisors to central Africa to help regional officials fight the brutal Lord's Resistance Army and its leader Joseph Kony, few journalists asked why or why now. The fact that the LRA is bad seemed to be enough. But is the move against the LRA part of something bigger happening in US foreign policy with regard to Africa? Well talk to the Institute for Policy Studies' John Feffer about searching for terrorists in Africa. Also on the show: Possible cuts to defense spending could mean the loss of a [...]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Did the corporate media turn on the Occupy Wall Street protests? When the protests started, the media story was a familiar one—the press ignored them, then derided activists for being leaderless, bongo pounding know-nothings. But then something happened, and suddenly anti-Wall Street activism is leading the nightly newscasts and splashed on the front page. Independent journalist and co-founder of the Occupied Wall Street Journal Arun Gupta will join us to talk about this shift--and what the media is still not getting quite right. Also on CounterSpin today: Two days after Attorney General Eric holder [...]
