FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The latest instance of the classic politician-journalist-politician feedback loop is completed when the New York Times‘ David Carr quotes Michael Bloomberg (10/5/08) citing a Times editorial that backed their rich mayor friend’s bid to legalize a third term for himself: “‘But as newspaper editorialists and others have pointed out,’ he said, ‘the current law denies […]
Calling the New York Times out for contributing to another “Pundit/Viewer Divide” on debate performances, Editor & Publisher‘s Greg Mitchell writes (10/3/08) of how Adam Nagourney “was among those who seemed to give it to Palin slightly, and some hailed Palin’s ‘knockout’ performance”: One problem: virtually all of the surveys afterward, by CBS, CNN and […]
Mike Janssen of In These Times (9/27/08) explains that, while the fact that radio is “cheap and ubiquitous… easily accessible to the poor, the illiterate and the low-tech,” may not be valued by massive conglomerates like Clear Channel, for many communities, radio still promises a way to spread news, share stories and support a cultural […]
Citing plentiful evidence that “John McCain has been supporting torture for years now… dragging world opinion of the United States into the gutter, making us less safe,” David Swanson uses an American Chronicle piece (9/28/08) to point out a different, “parallel universe”:
Women In Media & News blogger Miranda Spencer has “some good news for women in journalism: Longtime investigative environmental journalist Marla Cone, who spent nearly two decades at the Los Angeles Times, has just taken the helm as editor in chief at the online publication Environmental Health News.” Spencer gives the reinvigorated news site a […]
Founder and senior editor Paul Jay announces (9/25/08) the Real News‘ move from Toronto to Washington, D.C., to better “focus on money and corruption”: Taking on the industrial-military complex is what real change requires. Even former presidents and high administration officials have said so, but corporate television news treats such positions as marginal. Well, we […]
Looking beyond particularly hateful media individuals like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Lou Dobbs, Joseph Torres of StopBigMedia.com (10/1/08) has some disturbing numbers to explain why, he says, “media have contributed to the racial divisions that still exist in this country by marginalizing people of color in its coverage”:
The latest TomDispatch (9/30/08) features historian Ira Chernus ruminating on “How Forgotten Iraq May Elect the Next President”: Even before the present financial meltdown hit the news, the Iraq War had slipped out of the headlines and off the political stage. Now, as investment houses totter and bailout plans fill the headlines, it will be […]
The American News Project‘s Harry Hanbury reports (10/1/08) that “by now millions of Americans have seen the video clips where [GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah] Palin… prays the Iraq war will be revealed as a task from God.” The ANP video even shows Palin praying “that our… national leaders, are sending them [occupation soldiers] out […]
David Swanson’s latest piece in OpEd News (10/1/08) chronicles the fight against corporate media that report on the economic crisis as if, Swanson paraphrases, “the stock market is the same thing as the economy”:
Veteran reporter Robert Parry muses on his Consortium News website (9/27/98) that “perhaps it’s unrealistic to expect a U.S. presidential debate to deal – substantively and honestly – with wrongful actions by the American government”
Continuing to prove himself as tenacious as the Washington Post is doctrinaire, economist Dean Baker provides another example (9/28/08) of how the “Post editorial board occasionally just makes up numbers to advance its arguments”
The National Council of La Raza’s campaign to encourage “media networks and political candidates to separate themselves from hate groups and hate speech” targets (9/23/08) talk radio star Michael Savage
FAIR associate Norman Solomon tells Real News viewers (9/29/08) of lessons to be drawn from corporate U.S. media’s non-coverage of what was big news overseas during the run up to war on Iraqâ┚¬”ÂU.S. spies used the U.N. arms inspection process to identify future bombing targets and track Saddam Hussein’s movements
To illustrate what he deems corporate media’s “arbitrary and often contradictory standards set for Barack Obama as a black candidate,” Tapped blogger Adam Serwer (9/26/08) quotes a New York Times “Political Memo” by Patrick Healy that complains the candidate “is sometimes out of sync with the visceral anger of Americans who are losing their jobs […]
Reporters of integrity quitting their jobs over what amount to unidentified ads in local news has prompted journalist groups to condemn “broadcast outlets using video news releases that are produced by pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers to look like news reports.” Emily Udell of In These Times has (9/18/08) more on the matter:
L.A. Times media reporter Matt Welch (9/26/08) says it’s “no wonder John McCain ‘suspended’ his presidential campaign Wednesday to focus in a bipartisan manner on a grave national crisis,” considering how the same move during NATO’s 1999 bombing of Kosovo has been called “a masterful political stroke”:
