FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
David Swanson comments (OpEd News, 10/27/08) on Rep. Barney Frank “having just blurted out the obvious but taboo fact that the U.S. military budget must be cut”: When a Congress member steps forward and courageously articulates a forbidden truth that is absolutely necessary for our survival and well-being (and by “our” I mean our species, […]
Staying abreast of technological issues with repercussions in the areas of media consumer rights, privacy rights and corporate censorship, Free Press (10/28/08) is calling for the Federal Communications Commission to require all broadband providers to disclose any practice that monitors or interferes with their customers’ Internet use. In addition to transparent “network management” practices, according […]
Seattle Post-Intelligencer reader Muhammad Omer Iqbal posts on the paper’s blog (10/26/08) about media in a “frenzy to denounce Islam and Muslims every time a terrorist activity takes place”: Many Muslims believe that their faith was taken by terrorists when they indulged in some of the most heinous crimes. On the other hand, I am […]
Looking at “the media attention granted the right-wing attacks on ACORN,” politics writer Glenn W. Smith poses a question to Editor & Publisher readers (10/15/08): “Why does it seem to be a greater sin to be suspected of voter registration mistakes than to publicly engage in voter suppression efforts?” Smith’s response to his own query […]
As we finally near the end of the U.S. presidential race, Norman Solomon looks back (Creator’s Syndicate, 10/25/08) at “a year when the dominant media spin has been upended time after time” and analyzes “the latest twist of political storylines that have been rendered pretzel-like long ago”: In a piece posted October 21 on the […]
Blogging at the Women In Media & News website (10/24/08), Diane Farsetta does her usual outstanding job in exposing the hand of big-time PR in U.S. media. According to the PR trade publication O’Dwyer’s, the Council for a Democratic Iran spent $300,000 on its new lobbying and PR firm, the Livingston Group, in the third […]
Local CBS reporter Cynthia Fodor’s revelation that she “had to submit which topics we wanted to discuss ahead of time” to get an interview with Sarah Palin has Think Progress‘s Ben Armbruster (10/27/08) putting the censorious nature of Palin’s handlers into perspective: Fodor’s revelations come at a particular disturbing time. Just last week, press freedom […]
Dean Baker nails the New York Times‘ Ben Stein again for “telling people that it is important to save money in order to protect themselves against the sort of downturn that the economy is now seeing.” Baker writes (Beat the Press, 10/26/08) that while it’s obvious “people should try to put some money aside, most […]
Reporting on former Chicago detective Jon Burge’s long-delayed arrest for “perjury and obstruction of justice” related to police torture in “the Area Two Violent Crimes unit on Chicago’s South Side,” American Prospect blogger Phoebe Connelly writes (Tapped, 10/21/08) of how “John Conroy (whose exhaustive reporting on the subject is worth a read) mapped out the […]
Free Press Campaign Director Timothy Karr reminds us (Communities United, 10/23/08) that “a huge decision is going to be made on Election Day that could change the lives of millions of Americans,” but is “not about Obama or McCain”: On November 4, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on whether to open unused television airwaves […]
Tim Redmond writes (10/22/08) of how “there aren’t many locally-owned independent newspapers left in America,” noting that “even the alternative press has become chain-happy…. In… most of the nation’s biggest cities, the once-upstart weeklies are owned by big national chains.” But, to the great benefit of Northern Californians, the San Francisco Bay Guardian that “Bruce […]
Declaring (10/22/08) that “it’s hard not to read all the editorial plaudits for [Colin] Powell as something of an indictment of the opinion writers complimenting his courage,” Lester Feder also chides his own CJR.org for relative silence until, in his Sunday appearance on Meet the Press, Powell cited the persistent right-wing “Barack Obama is a […]
Beat the Press blogger Dean Baker (10/23/08) finds an instance of economic reporting so egregious it “calls for an extra long arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” The offending occurrence: “NPR just reported on Morning Edition that the markets are plummeting because investors are realizing the seriousness of the damage caused by the credit crunch.” Baker sets ’em straight: The […]
After quoting New York City Councilmember Charles Barron “offering the simplest route to continued democracy: Do nothing…. The people have spoken twice [against extending mayoral term limits] already. Why not just leave things as they are?”, Tom Robbins tells Village Voice readers (10/21/08) that Barron’s simple questions were matched only by the New York Times‘ […]
FAIR contributor Mark Crispin Miller and David Swanson are among those signed onto an “Open Letter to the Media from the Media” that asserts (We Do Not Consent, 10/23/08) that “federal election results are unprovable, even though the media reports them as fact.” Citing how “electronic voting machines frequently produce results impossible in a legitimate […]
Russia writer Mark Ames notices (Nation, 10/22/08) that, a couple of weeks ago, the New York Times slipped in a story that completely contradicted a narrative that it had been building up for two straight months, one that was leading America into another war–a so-called “New Cold War.” The article exposed the awful authoritarian reality […]
The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression organization has named recently-freed reporter Sami al-Haj as a recipient of its 2008 International Press Freedom Award. The Indo-Asian News Service reviews the back story (10/23/08): Held at Guantanamo Bay for six years, Sami al-Haj was freed on May 1 this year. Never formally charged, he was pressured to […]
Writing at the Columbia Journalism Review‘s website (10/17/08), Elinore Longobardi points out the pure absurdity of Newsweek‘s persistence in the role of economic cheerleader: In the October 20 cover story, Fareed Zakaria… explains the problem: Two decades of easy money and innovative financial products meant that virtually anyone could borrow any amount of money for […]
Describing the latest in “its continuing effort to combat hate and bigotry,” the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee announces (10/22/08) it “has launched the ‘Mail Back the Hate’ campaign” to “counter the most recent attempt using the politics of fear as a tool to spread hate and division; the distribution of 28 million copies of “Obsession: Radical […]
Opening with the observation: Ralph “Nader, an independent, and [Bob] Barr, a Libertarian, are both on the ballot in 45 states. What they aren’t on: TV,” Glenn Garvin of the Miami Herald (10/21/08) gives props to a new FAIR release (10/21/08) that, in Garvin’s words, raises another argument that deserves even greater consideration–that elections should […]
