FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Gabriel Sherman’s New York magazine piece on cable news (10/3/10) has an important insight into the Fox News‘ success: Fox‘s rightward flanking maneuver, capturing a disenfranchised part of the audience, was only part of its strategy. The news, especially political news, wasn’t something that happened. It was something that you shaped out of the raw […]
You may remember James O’Keefe as the video hoaxter who fooled media into thinking ACORN gave tax advice to a man wearing a pimp costume (FAIR Action Alert, 3/11/10). Or as the miscreant whose attempts to interfere with Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office phones got him arrested (Extra!, 4/10). Now O’Keefe has a new claim […]
Jeffrey Trachtenberg, writing for the Wall Street Journal (9/28/10), reports in “Authors Feel Pinch in Age of E-Books” that electronic publishing is ruining authors: It has always been tough for literary fiction writers to get their work published by the top publishing houses. But the digital revolution that is disrupting the economic model of the […]
Clearly, WikiLeaks does not have a “policy of releasing absolutely everything”–as a “responsible journalist” would have noted, rather than “dumping all kinds of crazy information online.”
The New York Times‘ Sheryl Gay Stolberg (9/22/10), writing about “brusque and brilliant economist” Lawrence Summers stepping down as President Obama’s chief economic adviser, cited House minority leader John Boehner’s charge that “Mr. Obama’s team lacked ‘real-world, hands on experience,’ a direct shot at Mr. Summers’ career as an academic.” She followed this by writing, […]
Martin Peretz, owner/editor of the New Republic, has come under fire recently for his anti-Muslim comments–leading to protests at Harvard, where Peretz is scheduled to be honored with an endowed chair in social studies named for him. Peretz’s bigotry has been well-known for years–and is not confined to Muslims or Arabs, though those may be […]
The New York Times‘ David Carr (9/20/10) compares involvement by media figures in politics–exemplified by CNBC‘s Rick Santelli and various Fox News figures fueling the Tea Party movement, and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s dueling answer rallies to said movement–to “a football game where the reporters and commentators, bored by the feckless proceedings on the […]
“Aren’t there things Obama & Co. could have done differently?” Howard Fineman writes in the current issue of Newsweek (9/20/10). “Election Day is still seven weeks away—but it’s not too early for a ‘pre-mortem.’” No, never too early—especially since Fineman’s column offers the same advice corporate media pundits have been giving to Democratic politicians for […]
A recent report by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (9/12/10) deals in part with the news outlets sought out by different partisan and ideological groups–Democrats and Republicans; conservatives, moderates and liberals. Which outlets are attractive to which groups–particularly the most polarized groups in the survey, conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats–sheds […]
PBS ombud Michael Getler has thankfully expanded on his “I trust Nova” response to concerns that public TV’s leading science program might be influenced by its climate change-denying funders (FAIR Blog, 9/8/10). In a more extensive response to those who thought they detected the fingerprints of oil tycoon David Koch (and industry giant ExxonMobil) in […]
FAIR has a new Action Alert (9/13/10) pointing out ABC World News‘ misleading treatment of taxes and small businesses. Please leave copies of your messages to ABC, or comments on the alert, in the comments thread of this post.
PBS‘s Nova is taking money from one of the biggest bankrollers of climate change denial—and, surprise surprise, the resulting programming tells viewers not to worry about climate change. But PBS‘s ombud doesn’t see this as a conflict of interest—because Nova is a “consistently first-rate program,” and he trusts it. Nova‘s conflict of interest was highlighted […]
Daniel Hernandez wrote an article for Extra! last year (6/09) about the tendency of U.S. corporate media to treat Mexican violence as a phenomenon that threatens to “spill over” into the U.S.—as in New York Times headlines like “Drug Cartel Violence Spills Over From Mexico, Alarming U.S.” (3/23/09) and “Wave of Drug Violence Is Creeping […]
It really is offensive for commentators to use the word “violence” to mean “violence against one side in a conflict.” As in Martin Indyk’s op-ed in the New York Times yesterday (8/27/10), which argues that there is “For Once, Hope in the Middle East,” because, “First, violence is down considerably in the region.” Here’s his […]
The New York Times‘ Susan Dominus, writing an article (8/24/10) entirely about a congressional candidate’s footwear, makes an attempt at self-inoculation: I know. We, the news media, are not supposed to ask female candidates about their hairstyle or their choice of pantsuits over skirts or their shoes. It is irrelevant. It is trivializing. It is […]
USA Today‘s lead story on August 10 was about the pay of public workers, a subject reporter Dennis Cauchon has complained about before. “Federal Workers Earning Double Their Private Counterparts,” the headline read, over a lead that reported that “federal employees’ average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn.” Well, […]
The Los Angeles Times reports today (8/13/10) that the “moral argument” over California’s Proposition 8, which banned gay marriages, “has morphed into a debate over the democratic process and the propriety of judges overturning laws approved by voters.” It’s strange, then, that an article on this “debate” would feature only viewpoints from one side: the […]
New Republic blogger Jonathan Chait (4/11/10) criticizes Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas for comparing the Republican Party to the Taliban, noting that the latter engages in “wanton torture and violence.”
Trying to explain why Need to Know, the PBS public affairs show that appeared in the Friday night timeslot vacated by Bill Moyers Journal and Now, has gotten such a cool reception from viewers, co-host Allison Stewart seems to blame nostalgia. “Obviously you can’t replace Bill Moyers,” says Stewart (Show Tracker, 8/5/10). “That’s just a […]
USA Today had a piece yesterday (8/5/10) about new rules of engagement issued in Afghanistan by Afghan War commander Gen. David Petraeus. The new rules—much like the old rules—”are aimed at limiting civilian casualties,” the paper’s Jim Michaels reports in its own voice, explaining: At the heart of counterinsurgency doctrine is the principle that winning […]
