FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
The subhead sums up the point of USA Today‘s lead story today (2/14/11) about Barack Obama’s budget proposal: Obama Proposes Cuts to Trim Deficit; GOP, Others Want More The piece by Richard Wolf and Mimi Hall begins, “President Obama will send Congress a 2012 budget today that would trim the budget deficit by $1.1 trillion […]
Displaying the same allergy to actual democracy shown by Joe Klein (FAIR Blog, 2/3/11), Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer (2/4/11) calls, like Klein, for a military regime in Egypt to impose a “period of stability” for “guiding the country to free elections”–the kind of “free elections” in which the military will “guarantee” that the right […]
Start with USA Today‘s headline (2/3/11): Mubarak Supporters Weigh In: Anti-Government Rallies Shaken by Rival Protesters The forces attacking the pro-democracy demonstrators in Tahrir Square were not “rival protesters”; they were government agents, complete in many cases with police ID cards that were confiscated when violent provocateurs were apprehended by activists (Al Jazeera English, 2/2/11). […]
It is bizarre to see Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly denying that pundits from her network compare people to Nazis—contrasting this reticence to Rep. Steve Cohen (D.-Tenn.), who said calling healthcare reform a “government takeover of healthcare” was “a big lie. Just like Goebbels.” In fact, such comparisons are common currency on Fox News and […]
As Sam Husseini noted, one of the things we’ll miss about print newspapers is ironic juxtaposition of stories. The front page of yesterday’s New York Times (1/20/11) provided a classic example: There was a story about Chinese President Hu Jintao visiting the White House, headlined (in the late print edition) “Obama Raises Human Rights, Pressing […]
USA Today (1/12/11) continues the tradition of dishonest reporting on the number of civilian casualties in Iraq. In a front-page article, reporter Tom Vanden Brook writes: Estimates vary among organizations that have tried to count civilian dead, according to a review last year by the Congressional Research Service. The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights reported […]
Right-wing pundits have come out vociferously against the idea that they, their colleagues and the political movement they identify with have anything to answer for in the wake of the Tucson massacre. David Brooks (New York Times, 1/11/11) asserted that “the evidence before us suggests that [shooting suspect Jared] Loughner was locked in a world […]
Sheryl Gay Stolberg has an article in the New York Times (12/26/10) about what President Obama’s trips to Hawaii say about him: “Mr. Obama’s disappearance behind the palm trees reveals much about his presidential style, and also his thinking about how to balance work and play.” She contrasts these trips to his birth state […]
In the proud tradition of objective journalism, the New York Times included both positive and negative views of Afghan envoy Richard Holbrooke in its December 14 obituary: Some called him a bully, and he looked the part: the big chin thrust out, the broad shoulders, the tight smile that might mean anything. To admirers, however, […]
The earmarks story is a peculiar genre of journalism wherein you focus on how much government spending is directed to legislator-specified projects–generally without pointing out what a tiny fraction of total spending this is, or that without the earmarking this money would be spent anyway, on some project chosen by the executive branch. Then you […]
In AlterNet‘s article “Is Amazon Evil?” (12/8/10)–reprinted from the Boston Review (11-12/10)–the description of the economics of e-books is seriously dubious. Reporter Onnesha Roychoudhuri writes: If Amazon had asked publishers what they thought about locking in e-book prices at $9.99, it would have been subjected to a chorus of outrage. That’s because the math behind […]
CNBC‘s Erin Burnett discussing the tax deal on the Today show yesterday (12/7/10): “With capital gains and dividend taxes staying low, the half of Americans that own stocks get a benefit there as well.” Oh, really? Here’s some figures from the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities (1/30/06): Over half—54 percent—of all capital gains and […]
One gets the impression, reading the New York Times‘ coverage of the WikiLeaks cables, that the paper is particularly interested in documents that portray the State Department in a good light, struggling to do good in a world that continually resists its efforts. Take today’s front-page piece (12/7/10), “America Prods and Protests But Can’t Halt […]
A Washington Post editorial (12/3/10) on the film Fair Game complains that “the film’s reception illustrates a more troubling trend of political debates in Washington in which established facts are willfully ignored.” Talk about lack of self-awareness. The film dramatizes the story of Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who blew the whistle on the Bush […]
They don’t show–at least in any significant way, with the caveat that thousands of e-mails still remain to be released–the U.S. government seriously misleading its allies. They don’t show unauthorized war, fraudulent procurement practices or unexpected assassination. They don’t show America forming significant alliances with sworn enemies or visiting unexpected deceit on friends. –James Rainey […]
If a single foreign national is rounded up and put in jail because of a leaked cable, this entire, anarchic exercise in “freedom” stands as a human disaster. Assange is a criminal. He’s the one who should be in jail. –Joe Klein, Swampland (12/1/10) Actually, Julian Assange didn’t leak anything–he can’t, because he didn’t […]
As Peter Hart noted earlier, New York Times political reporter Matt Bai has a piece today (12/1/10) critical of Barack Obama for being “loath to publicly disown his base.” Bai writes of Obama: “Since he isn’t willing to break publicly with liberals, independent and conservative voters tend to see him as a tool of the […]
The new film Fair Game, starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, recreates the Bush administration’s exposure of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson in retaliation for her husband Joe Wilson’s public criticism of Bush’s WMD claims. It also depicts the shameful role that the D.C. establishment media played in facilitating the government’s efforts to marginalize […]
Counting tonight’s episode, Charlie Rose has had five guests discussing the Simpson/Bowles deficit reduction plan, and all five have been right-leaning proponents of the plan’s austerity measures. To call for a broader discussion, see FAIR’s latest Action Alert. Please leave copies of your messages–or comments on the alert–in the comments thread here.
I agree with Keith Olbermann (11/15/10) about the dubious value of “objectivity” as a journalistic value; he makes a telling point about how journalistic icons like Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow are most honored for the moments when they reached conclusions and asserted values. And I think he’s right that the U.S. media establishment’s […]
