FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Salon‘s Greenwald (6/27/09, ad-viewing required) has taken a hard look at Washington Post and ProPublica journalists Peter Finn’s and Dafna Linzer’s report–“relying exclusively on three Obama officials speaking behind a veil of anonymity”–“that the White House is ‘crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely.’” Finding it […]
Addressing Bush-era Department of Justice investigations, David Swanson (6/26/09) is asking OpEd News readers the provocative question, “Did you know the United States has in recent years prosecuted hundreds of people for political reasons?” This is a crime, or rather a crime wave, that has thus far been addressed primarily by ignoring it. You can […]
In Dan Froomkin‘s last column for the Washington Post (6/26/09), he promises to “continue doing accountability journalism”–as good as any self-description to distinguish his work from his typical Post colleague’s obsequiousness–and tries “hard to summarize the past five-and-a-half years” in which “George W. Bush was truly the proverbial emperor with no clothes”: In the days […]
Former Sean Hannity show regular Hal Turner recently was arrested for blogging that “we have enough bullets to put… down” those not heeding his “warning to others in government: Obey the Constitution or die.” While criminal prosecution most definitely is not the general solution for hateful commentary, the Hartford Courant‘s Edmund H. Mahony (6/25/09) reports […]
Proving his memory better (or at least less selective) than that of the institution of corporate journalism, Media Bloodhound blogger Brad Jacobson (6/24/09) is proposing that “It might be more difficult for Republicans to bash President Obama for being ‘timid‘ in his comments about the Iranian government’s violence against protesters if the U.S. media didn’t […]
Blogger Jonathan Schwarz (A Tiny Revolution, 6/24/09) has noted that when “CBS ran a story about the latest batch of Nixon tapes made public… they included a section of a February 21, 1973 conversation with Billy Graham that showed Nixon at his psycho best,” addressing anti-Semitism thus: “This has happened to the Jews, happened in […]
Activist David Swanson (AfterDowningStreet.org, 6/24/09) has some problems with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s and Congressmember Tom Perriello’s recent visit “generating a story and big color photo on page 1 of the Charlottesville Daily Progress” under the headline “In UVa Visit, Democrats Call Deficit Reckless“: The newspaper reported on Congressman Perriello warning that he could […]
Gawker blogger The Cajun Boy (6/24/09) is agog at “How Fox News Educates Its Viewers”: Last night Glenn Beck made crude drawings on a chalkboard, and tonight he and Bill O’Reilly used Barbie dolls to explain ACORN. In the course of explaining how Nancy Pelosi is trying to stop noble Republicans from stopping ACORN from […]
Economist Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 6/20/09) has requested you try to “imagine a front-page Washington Post article that talked about how the United States had a shortage of small cars.” He reasonable assumes such a piece would address “the limited capacity of the various small-car assembly plants” and “discuss the amount of lead time […]
Steven T. Jones and Sarah Phelan are reporting (San Francisco Bay Guardian online, 6/19/09) on San Francisco Chronicle immigration reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken’s acceptance of “an award and cash prize (he refuses to say how much) from the Center for Immigration Studies–which a Southern Poverty Law Center report in February 2009 criticized for its overtly […]
Dirk Smillie’s Forbes interview (6/18/09) with veteran news analyst Andrew Tyndall includes the observation that “mainstream press–network newscasts in particular–have been criticized for overly favorable coverage of the Obama administration.” Tyndall takes the opportunity to make some important distinctions about this common allegation: There may be a personality bias, not a liberal bias. Since the […]
A posting on Timothy Karr’s Media Citizen blog (6/17/09) contrasts Crooks & Liars‘ collection of cable news pundits like Lou Dobbs and Bill O’Reilly likening the anti-immigrant Minutemen to a giant, friendly “neighborhood watch” organization with the “chilling double-murder” Minutemen leader Shawna Forde is accused of–describing “the 911 recording of the mother as she witnessed […]
Blogger Jane Hamsher (FireDogLake.com, 6/19/09) thinks that Salon‘s “Glenn Greenwald says most of what needs to be said about the Washington Post‘s firing of Dan Froomkin,” on June 18, but has her own “insight into “the early rounds of this battle” over the left-leaning columnist, having “watched it ferment over the years.” Hamsher explains that […]
Norman Solomon uses his most recent Creators Syndicate column (6/19/09) to call for journalism that “is open scrutiny of the dynamics of power. Reporters should shine a bright light on behind-the-scenes maneuvers that block congressional oversight of administration policies”: Last Tuesday, when the House of Representatives approved a supplemental spending bill for more war in […]
Doling out “a little positive reinforcement” when Fox News “actually gets something right,” Mark Howard of News Corpse (6/18/09) agrees with Sean Hannity’s declaration of “the death of journalism”–though disagreeing with the context of Fox‘s pronouncement, being their assertion that a scheduled ABC News broadcast “that would delve into the pros and cons of the […]
Linking to a Felice Pace piece of June 14 that connects the near-absence of single-payer-focused NPR reportage to millions of dollars in underwriting the broadcaster has received from insurance industry heavies, NPR Check‘s Mytwords (6/17/09) includes his own comment left under Weekend Edition Saturday‘s “Health Care Reform From The Insurer’s Perspective” segment: Congratulations NPR—as a […]
In Women In Media & News‘ announcement (6/18/09) that former FAIR staffer Jennifer Pozner has won a New Leaders Council “40 Under 40” Award–given to those “who exemplify the spirit of progressive political entrepreneurship”–Women’s Rights blogger Jennifer Nedeau spells out why “women in media are crucial to the future of progressive leadership”: Because they can […]
Amanda Terkel of Think Progress (6/18/09) has posted video and transcript of an MSNBC segment in which Joe Scarborough asked CNBC‘s Jim Cramer about “a stunning poll the New York Times has this morning suggesting that Americans are more concerned about deficits than stimulus”: Cramer claimed that Americans aren’t buying into healthcare reform right now […]
Keeping up with corporate attempts to abuse new media technology, the activists at Free Press (6/18/09) have a new campaign pointing out exactly what’s wrong with the fact that “AT&T is allowing Major League Baseball to stream video live to the iPhone on the carrier’s 3G network, but is prohibiting other companies like SlingPlayer Mobile […]
Looking beyond “the yellow-tape segments that bleed and lead local TV news” Norman Solomon (Creators Syndicate, 6/13/09) discerns what he dubs “Media’s Love/Hate Affair with Violence”–as exemplified by the kind of violence–rarely occurring in the light of day–that gets scant media attention. With somewhere around 2 million people behind bars in the United States, all […]
