FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
“Liberal media” basher Bernie Goldberg is back with a new book, and Media Matters‘ Dianna Parker (1/25/09) finds him as error-ridden as ever: In yet another instance of mangling the facts to show purported media favoritism toward then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, Bernard Goldberg writes in his new book: “Finally, in the last month of the […]
A January 23 New York Times column by Bob Herbert distilled the message of Barack Obama’s nascent administration as “No more crazy wars.” FAIR associate Norman Solomon’s reaction (AfterDowningStreet.org, 1/26/09): “I wish.” Lamenting the current “narrowness of political vision–while news outlets are reporting that the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan is expected to ‘as […]
Raw Story highlights a Daily Show clip (1/22/09) in which Jon Stewart plays an astounding array of “soft-on-terror” clips from Fox coverage of Barack Obama’s first day as U.S. president. Stewart then reminds us how “criticism and dissent of the president’s policies, especially Iraq, used to be viewed” by playing a March 30, 2007, “Talking […]
Jonathan Schwarz (A Tiny Revolution, 1/20/09) is linking to Glenn Greenwald’s Salon catch of John Barry telling Newsweek readers to not sweat “the core charge that the [Bush] administration ‘misled’ the legislature and the American public by faking evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.” Barry asserts any such accountability would be “vengeance, […]
In discussion with Foreign Policy in Focus‘ Sameer Dossani (1/16/09), Noam Chomsky states “the fact of the matter” that “the press won’t talk about”: “that there has been a political settlement on the table, on the agenda for 30 years” in the Middle East. And that would be “a two-state settlement on the international borders.” […]
Raw Story‘s David Edwards and Muriel Kane (1/21/09) report on ex-NSA agent Russell Tice’s appearance on MSNBC‘s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, where the man “who helped expose the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping in December 2005” further revealed “that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists”: […]
Media critic Brad Friedman explains (BradBlog.com, 1/21/09) exactly why he considers media reform “the most important…reform of all at this particular point in the 21st century”: While the Supreme Court has declared many times that the right to vote is protective of all other rights, I’d suggest that the right to be informed, accurately, via […]
Your daily dose of radio bigotry is brought to you by the super-hater team of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Rush recently hosted Coulter on his radio show (RushLimbaugh.com, 1/16/09), where they got down to some of the racist banter they’re so famous for: Rush: Arianna [Huffington], you need a translator. Coulter: And George Soros! […]
Writing on Washington Monthly‘s Political Animal blog (1/21/09), Steve Benen quotes Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris of Politico rueing the lack of “evidence that [Barack Obama] is willing to challenge Democratic special interest groups“: “There are few examples of him making decisions during the campaign or the transition that offended his own party’s constituencies…. […]
Scott Horton of Harper’s (1/21/09) tells us of some big news on “the German television program Frontal 21, on channel ZDF“: In an interview there, “internationally renowned law professor” and “independent expert for the United Nations” Manfred Nowak, “the United Nations Rapporteur responsible for torture, stated that with George W. Bush’s head of state immunity […]
Unable to simply air the reality of George W. Bush’s immense unpopularity manifesting in a chorus of boos for his last public appearance as U.S. “president,” MSBNC newscasters (YouTube.com, 1/20/08) chide inauguration attendees for “bad form”–before eventually finding a camera shot to cut to instead showing the crowd cheering… for Obama. Hardly a new phenomenon; […]
Just when even the ultimately acerbic political critic Matt Taibbi began (New York Press, 1/14/09) “to lose faith in America’s ability to fall for absolutely anything,” he notes New York Times pundit Thomas Friedman, “resident of a positively obscene 11,400-square-foot suburban Maryland mega-monstro-mansion and husband to the heir of one of the largest shopping-mall chains […]
Finding it “more than ironic” and even “disturbing and more than a little sad,” Norman Solomon (Creators Syndicate, 1/17/09) points out that “at the same time that the United States is inaugurating a new presidency that marks the crashing of a racial barrier at the White House,” the African-American-centric News & Notes–a show “actually staffed […]
Asking the deceptively simple question, “More Bank Bailouts: Who Gets the Money?”, Beat the Press blogger Dean Baker has another telling example (1/18/09) of biases in media corporations’ reportage on corporate economics: The Washington Post made reducing the pay of autoworkers by $4.00 an hour a central theme of its coverage (both news and editorial) […]
In distinct contradiction to corporate media’s see-no-evil focus on the next presidency, media activist Veterans for Peace continue driving for Bush administration accountability with a new mock newspaper bluntly titled War Crime Times. The publication–featuring such uncorporate headlines as “Obama Should Prosecute Bush Officials Who Designed Torture Policy” and “Media Complicit: U.S. Journalists and War-Crime […]
Democracy Now‘s Amy Goodman relates how (1/13/09), at George W. Bush’s last press conference, he was “professing what he called his ‘respect’ for journalists” by asserting that “always the relationship I have felt has been professional.” Yet, Goodman tells us, “despite his avowed respect for the media, Bush refused to call on the journalist Helen […]
Comparing Tribune Co. raider Sam Zell to sea pirates of yore, longtime radio progressive Jim Hightower thinks (JimHightower.com, 1/18/09) Zell doesn’t come out too well–“the difference between pirate captains of old and modern-day corporate bosses is that pirates had ethics”: They fairly shared their loot, for example, with the entire crew. Contrast that with the […]
Recalling how “too often, government has tried to expand Internet access by giving public money to massive phone and cable companies” and only gotten “tax dollars squandered,” to the point that “Americans now face few market choices, and pay high prices for speeds that are far too slow,” the folks at Free Press are now […]
Writing for a collective media criticism blog in Michigan (MediaMouse.org, 1/15/09), Jeff Smith states that, “if the U.S. public is ever going to hold the U.S. government accountable for its policy in Afghanistan, then we need to challenge how the U.S. news media reports on that policy.” But he also knows that “for many Americans […]
Excerpting a David Ignatius column (Washington Post, 1/15/09) that characterizes a strict Obama administration “focus on… getting things right in the future” as “the kind of realism that will disappoint liberal score-settlers,” Glenn Greenwald’s Salon commentary (1/15/09, ad-viewing required) describes how “the word ‘liberal’ has undergone a remarkable transformation over the last eight years”–at least […]
