FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
In the wake of the celebration of Vice President–Elect Mike Pence being confronted by the cast of Hamilton—and tweets from Donald Trump confirming that the message had been received—came a backlash: This theater stuff was distracting us from serious issues. “Don’t Let Donald Trump’s Antics Distract You From What’s Really Important” was the headline of […]
Stephen Bannon, the Trump campaign chief executive and the announced “Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor to the President” in the Trump administration, has declared of Breitbart, the website he still heads, “We’re the platform for the alt-right.” What did he mean by that?
It’s unsurprising that Richard Cohen–notorious for his racialized worldview–evokes Latin America as a symbol of disregard for civil liberties. It’s also not surprising that as his example of bad Latin American–style oppression, he picks Nicaragua.
A major-party presidential candidate on the verge of the election repeatedly tells a far-fetched and easily checkable lie about the current president, suggesting he was “unhinged” and “a disgrace.” In the 2016 presidential campaign, where political journalists have obsessively covered every utterance of Trump, this surely qualifies as important news the electorate should know about, right?
If we’re going to call Snowden’s documents “stolen,” then journalists frequently receive “stolen” records from sources and use them as the basis for stories—as the Times itself has done with documents released by Snowden. If Snowden is a thief, then the New York Times is a fence.
Robert Samuelson argues you should vote for a GOP Congress to show that Clinton does not have “a compelling agenda,” and vote for Clinton to show that the Republicans’ control of Congress does “not signal the popularity of their political philosophy, whatever it is.”
What the New York Times did is called “burying the lead”—hiding the most important aspect of the story—even though, technically, it’s right there at the end of the lead paragraph. In another story, Times readers had to read quite a bit farther down to get to the real point of the story.
North Dakota District Judge John Grinsteiner stood up for the First Amendment by dismissing “riot” charges against Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman. That’s more than you can say for most of Goodman’s corporate media colleagues.
North Dakota has dropped criminal trespassing charges against Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman–and is instead seeking to charge her with participating in a riot.
Compared with registered voters, those who don’t register are more likely to be young, lower-income people of color. Despite this—or perhaps because of this—corporate media have done little to alert the public about voter registration deadlines.
If the New York Times is going to call Edward Snowden’s documents “stolen,” then journalists frequently receive “stolen” records from sources and use them as the basis for stories—as the Times itself has done with documents released by Snowden.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children has joined that peculiar 21st century phenomenon: the kids’ movie with an all-white cast except for the villain.
“We’re the platform for the alt-right,” Donald Trump’s campaign CEO, Stephen Bannon, told Mother Jones’ David Corn (8/22/16)—“we” meaning Breitbart News, the online news outlet that Bannon headed until he was picked to run the turbulent Trump campaign.
But most national US outlets—the ones who complain about not getting a seat on a candidate’s plane—breathed not a word on North Dakota’s assault on the press’s ability to cover a major story of the moment.
“President Obama has long refused to approve direct military intervention in Syria,” the New York Times asserted in an editorial. That’s a peculiar thing to say, given that the Times regularly covers the United States’ ongoing direct military intervention in Syria.
If the Times is going to treat Bill Clinton’s record of marital infidelity as relevant to the contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, why doesn’t it treat Trump’s record of infidelity as relevant?
A New York Times report on public opinion, trade and the election cherry-picks numbers to make voters seem more pro-“free trade.”
As of this writing, no TV outlet included in the Nexis database has mentioned that independent journalist Amy Goodman was charged with trespassing for reporting on the pipeline protest. Nor has any national newspaper reported on North Dakota’s legal assault on newsgathering.
Some might say that the turn toward ugliness occurred in the afternoon, when a police officer fatally shot a black man.
When Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman asked security guards at the Dakota Access Pipeline construction project why they were using pepper spray and dogs to attack Native American protesters, the guards soon backed off. It was a dramatic lesson in how journalism can defend the rights of citizens.
