FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
When Quebec students went on strike last spring in protest over an announced 75 percent tuition hike—part of a package of austerity measures by Quebec’s provincial government—U.S. media paid scant attention. The six-month-long strike was the largest and longest student strike in North American history; hundreds of thousands of Québécois repeatedly took to the streets, […]
In the wake of growing public dissatisfaction with the war in Afghanistan, FAIR is challenging the Sunday morning shows to include war critics and peace advocates as guests on their programs. Click here to read FAIR’s action alert about these shows’ complicity in government officials’ efforts to reverse the trend of declining public support for […]
For coverage of our delivery of FAIR’s ongoing petition demanding that the TV networks cover proposals for a single-payer or Medicare-for-all system to ABC News‘ NYC studio, you can tune into Democracy Now!–a media outlet that could teach the networks a thing or two about how to contribute to, rather than interfere with, the public […]
An LA Times column today cited FAIR’s petition demanding that the TV networks include single-payer in their coverage of the healthcare reform debate, acknowledging that there is a “gaping hole in much of the media coverage—caused by the failure to investigate practices around the rest of the world, particularly European-style, single-payer programs.” The Times‘ James […]
ABC‘s Diane Sawyer claimed (CNN, 6/22/09) the network’s June 24 forum on President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan would feature “questions from every single vantage point.” Yet, ignoring calls from FAIR (Action Alert, 6/22/09) and advocacy groups such as Health Care Now!, the special did not include a single question from an advocate of single-payer national […]
The East Valley Tribune’s Pulitzer-winning series (7/9–13/08) exposing the soaring crime rates that followed from Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s redeployment of law enforcement resources into a campaign against undocumented immigrants (see Extra!, 6/09) offers a fine example of journalism holding the powerful to account. It’s a model of journalism that has been all […]
In the wake of the release of the U.S. military’s own figures showing a record number of bombs were dropped by U.S. warplanes in Afghanistan during April, newspapers are reporting today on a particularly deadly bombing attack on Monday that killed over 100 civilians, according to Afghan officials and witnesses. Anonymous U.S. military officials of […]
Voter turnout in last weekend’s Haitian Senate elections was very low; observers cited in a Reuters report, “Haitians Largely Boycott Senate Election,” estimated it at less than 10 percent, which an Al Jazeera report attributed in part to “resentment over the banning of a popular party”–Fanmi Lavalas–as well as disenchantment with the ruling government and […]
Images of the U.S. media’s longtime foe, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, with Obama at last weekend’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad prompted some corporate reporters to take the unusual step of questioning the political motivations behind an official photo-op. On ABC‘s World News, Jake Tapper referred to Chavez’s gift of The Open Veins of […]
NBC Today show host Matt Lauer introduced Today‘s exclusive interview with Wal-Mart’s new CEO by saying, ‘If you really want to know how the economy is affecting the average American, he’s the guy to talk to.â┚¬Ã‚ Trust the corporate media to see a wealthy CEO as the most-qualified source to tell the public about ordinary […]
When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave U.S. President Barack Obama a copy of Eduardo Galeano’s book The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent at last weekend’s Summit of the Americas, the corporate media appeared to be caught off guard. In its initial report, CNN (Newsroom, 4/18/09) appeared to […]
Single-payer healthcare has proven to work well in other countries. It has been proposed in a bill with considerable congressional support, it polls well with the public, and it’s supported by a majority of physicians. So why is it so rarely mentioned in corporate media? In the wake of a Frontline documentary that failed to examine […]
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof issued a call in his column today for pundit accountability. After making a problematic argument about knowledge and experience being overrated, Kristof correctly pointed out that in the media, “the marketplace of ideas for now doesn’t clear out bad pundits and bad ideas partly because there’s no accountability,” and […]
A new FAIR action alert calls on the Fox News Channel to answer for host Bill O’Reilly’s pattern of ambushing his critics. O’Reilly (O’Reilly Factor, 3/23/08) recently targeted Think Progress blog editor Amanda Terkel while she was on vacation, sending his producer Jesse Watters to confront Terkel in one of the ambush-style interviews that he […]
Ira Forman set off a furor in the blogosphere this week when he reported that CBS‘s pick for senior VP of communications, Jeff Ballabon, had once suggested “that Democrats are inherently bad people.” (Forman—who is the executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council—maintains that this is what Ballabon had stated during a debate between […]
After eight years of George W. Bush’s rule, popular disapproval of policies that had come to be regarded as grave mistakes–from the invasion of Iraq to the response to the economic crisis–drove the Republicans from power. Unfortunately, the media system has no such built-in check on powerful pundits, as the unchallenged reign of another George […]
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman referred disparagingly this week to the praise that terrorism allegedly receives in “mainstream Arab media, like Al Jazeera.” In his February 18 column, Friedman wrote: To be sure, Mumbai’s Muslims are a vulnerable minority in a predominantly Hindu country. Nevertheless, their in-your-face defiance of the Islamist terrorists stands out. […]
A new FAIR action alert is targeting CNN host Lou Dobbs for peddling anti-union propaganda about the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), after Dobbs falsely suggested on his show (Lou Dobbs Tonight, 2/4/09) that the proposed new labor law would “end a secret ballot.” In fact, the EFCA would not take away workers’ rights to […]
FAIR issued a press release today (2/4/09) challenging the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation over false and biased claims made by its ombud after the CBC came under pressure from a campaign launched by groups that advocate for uncritical coverage of the Israeli government. The campaign was launched in response to CBC‘s October 23, 2008 airing of […]
The New York Times today makes a rare, if highly obfuscatory, reference to the fact that Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory continues despite nearly unanimous international consensus, expressed annually via the United Nations General Assembly. As a FAIR media advisory recently pointed out, international law is largely missing from U.S. media reporting on Israeli […]
