FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
With the presidential election fast approaching, Uncounted documentarian Mary Mancini uses her film’s blog (10/10/08) to give us “a little history from the year 2000–to remind us why we need to keep our eyes and ears open this November 4. . . and beyond”: We’re still not ready for a close election. . . . […]
An Inter Press Service piece (9/24/08) on the U.S.-press-distributed anti-Muslim video Obsession gives kudos to major metropolitan newspapers solicited to insert the paid advertisement into their product [that] have refused to do so…. “Despite the perilous state of American newspapers, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch advertising department took an ethical stand and refused to distribute the […]
Having found the issue “quite… complex” when facing it herself as a parent, Veronica Arreola of Women In Media & News writes (10/8/08) that “the debate over vaccines is a serious issue and does not deserve to be sexualized” as in this Chicago Tribune lede (10/3/08): “Former Playboy Playmate Jenny McCarthy and actress Amanda Peet […]
Any lingering hope you may have harbored for corporate pundits to rise above their infatuation with John McCain running mate Sarah Palin will surely be dashed by Rich Lowry’s titillated take (National Review Online, 10/3/08) on her debate performance–quoted in full: A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is […]
AfterDowningStreet.org‘s David Swanson provides (10/9/08) what he calls a typical example of how the news cycle works now that the blogosphere interacts (or doesn’t) with independent and corporate media: July 1, 2007: AfterDowningStreet.org breaks story of NSA whistleblower Adrienne Kinne. May 13, 2008: Democracy Now picks up the story of Kinne. May 19, 2008: AfterDowningStreet.org […]
Not-exactly-progressive journalist Joe Klein has been on a bit of a tear over at CNN‘s Swampland blog, declaring himself (10/6/08) to be of two minds about how to deal with the McCain campaign’s further descent into ugliness. Their strategy is simple: you throw crap against a wall and then giggle as the media try to […]
Ecology blog LiveGaia posts another entry (10/8/08) in the annals of corporate media’s poor advertising ethics: Last night in America, after the presidential debate the ads shown were as follows. ABC had Chevron. CBS had Exxon. CNN had the coal lobby. But you know what happened last week? ABC refused to run WeCanSolveIt’s Repower America […]
Liz Cox Barrett writes on the Columbia Journalism Review website (10/7/08) of the corporate media version of public participation: The rules for [Tuesday]’s “town hall-style” debate, agreed to by both campaigns “as part of a 31-page memorandum of understanding that leaked out this week,” a “document that is not made public, even by the Commission […]
Reporting on a trend he’s seen “laid out almost daily on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, in the National Review, and on the campaign trail,” Slate‘s Daniel Gross quotes Neil Cavuto of the Fox Business Channel: “I don’t remember a clarion call that said: Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and […]
In his new capacity as founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, FAIR founder Jeff Cohen recently hosted Josh Marshall, who used the Center’s inaugural event to describe (Huffington Post, 10/3/08) the evolution of his independent Talking Points Memo websites: After the 2004 election, it had become second nature to […]
MediaBloodhound blogger Brad Jacobson (10/8/08) catches a CNN website headline he calls “extremely misleading”: “Ticker: Obama Actions Called ‘Not Presidential.’” Reasoning that “naturally, readers might think this refers to something Barack Obama did or said during last night’s debate” or at least “possibly a response from a cross-section of undecided voters in a new poll,” […]
Salon‘s media blogger Glenn Greenwald gives a fresh example (10/7/08, ad-viewing required) of news pundits failing up in corporate media: Two weeks ago, Dick Morris was running around proclaiming McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign and make the bailout happen as a “brilliant move” that would pay off “big time” for McCain because he would […]
Providing a platform for the outstanding journalism of U.S. corporate media undesirable Robert Parry, the Real News is running a multi-part commentary on the consequences of “drunken optimism and blind nationalism” in the United States. In Part 3 (10/6/08), Parry discusses the big media role in the “divorcing of the American people from objective reality” […]
Recalling a Washington Post quote of Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Henry Paulson’s assertion to George W. Bush that “there is no Plan B” to choose over the $700 billion bank bailout, economist Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 10/7/08) notes that “it looks like the Fed has discovered a Plan B” after all
Describing an age-old political stategy–“John McCain….and Sarah Palin are going to try their best to make us talk about anything but the big issues facing our country”–the Washington Post‘s Eugene Robinson asks a question (10/5/08) as obvious to the electorate as it is rare in corporate news: “Are we in the media going to aid […]
Read New York Times reporters Dan Bilefsky’s and Michael Schwirtz’s account (10/6/08) of state censorship on the part of a recently prominent U.S. ally: The cameras at Georgia’s main opposition broadcaster, Imedi, kept rolling November 7, when masked riot police officers with machine guns burst into the studio. They smashed equipment, ordered employees and television […]
Fed up with “economic reporting [that] relies almost exclusively on experts who managed to overlook both the stock market bubble and the housing bubble,” Beat the Press blogger Dean Baker (10/6/08) writes that the Washington Post‘s Howard Kurtz “still misses some very fundamental points on the media’s reporting on the economy”: First, reporters should recognize […]
Brad Johnson presents another argument (Think Progress, 10/3/08) against the “liberal media bias” myth: “These tired claims ignore the reality that the right-wing agenda actually benefits the ‘mainstream media’”: The multinational corporations that run the mainstream media–GE (NBC), Time Warner (CNN), Walt Disney (ABC), News Corporation (FOX), and Viacom (CBS)–stand to benefit hugely under a […]
In an update on the furor over U.S. newspapers’ distribution of a virulently anti-Muslim DVD supplement, Anick Jesdanun of the Associated Press reports (10/4/08) that “the New York Times distributed it on the grounds that rejecting it would violate the sponsor’s right to free speech.” Left unexplored is corporate outlets like the Times‘ history of […]
Writing on the Progressive Democrats of America website (10/6/08), media critic and FAIR associate Norman Solomon is wary of the fact that “poll numbers so far in October, combined with ample media hype, have fostered the belief that the economic crisis is close to dooming the McCain campaign.” Solomon warns that “any crystal ball that […]
