FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The New York Times (12/1/99) reported in 1999 the finding of an investigation by state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer that the New York Police Department’s “stop and frisk” program unfairly targeted black and Hispanic people. “Police officials have long contended that the disparity was based on the fact that most people are stopped in poor, […]
Lives Worth Living, an independent documentary on the U.S. disability rights movement that aired recently on PBS, traces the emergence and growth of activism through the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act—a fact noted in a respectful New York Times review (10/26/11) that was all the notice big media appeared to take of […]
It’s hardly necessary for a critic to argue that the country’s major daily newspapers, the New York Times and Washington Post, routinely ignore their stated principles on anonymous sources (however vague such standards may be to begin with), the outlets make the case so vividly themselves. The New York Times rules state, for instance, that […]
Corporate media’s incredibly uncritical boosterism of so-called “free trade” deals has been remarked on many times, and continues to be remarkable. What else but blind faith would allow a story to carry a line like one in the October 12 New York Times, about textile industry opposition to the new deal with South Korea: “The […]
In the When Will They Learn? department, incoming National Public Radio president Gary Knell seems to suffer from the same misunderstanding that has plagued public broadcasting executives for years. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik reports that Knell says he hopes to “calm the waters a bit” at NPR after recent political controversies, and to “depoliticize” […]
Corporate media have spent the last few years portraying the federal budget deficit, not jobs, as the public’s consuming worry, despite poll after poll revealing people unsurprisingly more interested in getting or holding onto a paycheck (FAIR Media Advisory, 8/1/11). Only now that official Washington turns its sights to the issue have media “discovered” the […]
When the USA Patriot Act* was rushed into law after the September 11 attacks, the erosion of civil liberties the Act represented—the broad powers it gave law enforcement to spy on people, and the creation of the dangerously ill-defined crime of “domestic terrorism”—met with little detailed scrutiny or principled challenge from major media. Typical at […]
James Galbraith is a professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin, author most recently of The Predator State and chair of Economists for Peace and Security. Speaking to FAIR’s radio show CounterSpin (7/15/11), Galbraith pointed out that there could be real effects from defaulting on our debt, which is why it’s unconstitutional. […]
Knight-Ridder’s Washington bureau distinguished itself in the run-up to the Iraq War by challenging Bush administration claims with fact-driven reporting (Extra!, 3-4/06). Now known as McClatchy, the bureau is still challenging dominant storylines. The idea that tax cuts spur economic growth goes unquestioned in much budget reporting. But McClatchy’s Tony Pugh (3/28/11) documented how questionable […]
Elite media’s selective disdain for public activism is well known. Still, you’d think some things would garner a word or two. Like 300 disability rights activists, a couple hundred in wheelchairs, occupying the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building in Washington, D.C. The May 2 demonstration was organized by the rights group ADAPT to […]
ABC World News’ five-part “Made in America” series (2/28-3/4/11) purported not so much to explore as to answer the question of how to create jobs for unemployed Americans, by exhorting those same Americans to buy more U.S.-manufactured products. Not just any jobs, but “America’s manufacturing workforce, our true grit,” contended anchor Diane Sawyer (2/17/11). And […]
Is the Washington Post hoping readers only read headlines? At a glance, “Study: KIPP Charter Schools Have Extra Edge” (3/31/11) would seem to be just another in the Washington Post Co.‘s toutings of charter schools in general and KIPP schools in particular (Extra!, 9/10) Readers who actually click through though, might be surprised to learn […]
ABC World News’ five-part “Made in America” series (2/28-3/4/11) purported not so much to explore as to answer the question of how to create jobs for unemployed Americans, by exhorting those same Americans to buy more U.S.-manufactured products. Not just any jobs, but “America’s manufacturing workforce, our true grit,” contended anchor Diane Sawyer (2/17/11). And […]
U.S. media consumers are used to magazines where ads outnumber stories, to on-air hosts who contractually consume brand-name drinks, to “consideration provided by” this and “brought to you by” that. But when it comes to the news, many still maintain at least the kernel of expectation that reports in the paper or on TV have […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Why did Hillary Clinton jump on a plane to Haiti on January 30th in the middle of a major diplomatic crisis caused by the Egyptian uprising? She was going to Haiti because Washington is worried that U.S. efforts to deliver a Haitian president to its liking are threatened by […]
The Hub, a new cable TV channel co-owned by a toy company whose toys star in its shows, and Zevo-3, a new TV show with characters based on a shoe company’s ad campaign, are signs of the cost of leaving the creation of cultural and educational content mainly to profiteers. The makers of this programming […]
Today’s New York Times piece (11/29/10) on the re-election of a governor of Okinawa who opposes the U.S. military base there seems to treat the views of the People Who Live There as one thing to maybe think about, and an annoying, in-the-way thing at that, with residents’ resistance described, variously, as a “wrench,” a […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: Elites, including within the corporate media insist—against the evidence—that voters are highly concerned about the deficit. This is one of the reasons the draconian plan put forth by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, co-chairs of the president’s deficit commission, got such a friendly reception in the media. We’ll talk […]
Download MP3 This week on CounterSpin: The FDA is on the verge of approving genetically engineered salmon in spite of opposition by the public, scientists and consumer groups. On November 15 the group Food & Water Watch released internal documents from Fish & Wildlife Service scientists expressing misgivings about the safety of the altered salmon […]
The corporate media consensus is that voters sent a message: “You tried to do too much.” Does the actual vote match up to the post-election media spin?
