FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
There’s a certain the-monster-isn’t-so-bad genre of journalism–profiling some character known for vicious misanthropy, usually a right-wing media personality, only to assure readers that once you get to know them, you realize that they don’t actually mean all the nasty things they say. (The Time cover story on Ann Coulter discussed here is perhaps the classic […]
Newsweek has another installment in the don’t-blame-Arizonans coverage of the state’s new immigration law (FAIR Blog, 4/28/10, 5/3/10, 5/4/10). Under the charming headline “Mexican Standoff,” reporter Eve Conant writes: Some accuse lawmakers and the 70 percent of Arizonans who support the bill of acting like Nazis, or of turning Arizona into an apartheid state. But […]
“Elena Kagan Is Miles Away From Mainstream America” is the headline on Kathleen Parker‘s Washington Post column this morning (5/12/10). What exactly does that mean? Well, on first blush, it seems to have to do with where she’s from: “Coincidentally, she shares the same home town as the other two women on the court. Assuming […]
Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam writes of his first job in journalism, at “now-foundering Newsweek,” which he describes as being “like an upside-down journalism school, where I learned an astonishing number of bad habits.” But it clearly gave him some valuable insights into how corporate journalism works: I was an editorial assistant/fact-checker, with duties analogous […]
The formula for “contrarian” journalism was aptly summed up by Wonkette (1/6/09): Take a widely accepted belief (e.g., “Dogs make good pets”) and write a cool 600 words arguing why its opposite is SECRETLY truer (“Why all dogs should die”). Of course, it helps if the upside-down world you’re proposing turns out to be one […]
Ross Douthat has a New York Times column today (5/3/10) criticizing those who are “impugning the motives” of the new Arizona immigration law, which has been denounced as a “Nazi” or “near-fascist” law, a “police state” intervention, an imitation of “apartheid,” a “Juan Crow” regime that only a bigot could possibly support. Really, says Douthat, […]
The Obama Justice Department—or at least one of its top prosecutors—is cracking down on investigative reporting without regard for the First Amendment. The first disturbing development was the indictment of NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake, whose leaks to the Baltimore Sun helped expose how the NSA’s warrantless spying program deliberately failed to protect the privacy of […]
George Will, defending Arizona’s draconian new immigration law, concludes his column (Washington Post, 4/28/10) with this today: Arizonans should not be judged disdainfully and from a distance by people whose closest contacts with Hispanics are with fine men and women who trim their lawns and put plates in front of them at restaurants, not with […]
I’m having trouble getting my mind around the legal case against Gizmodo editor Jason Chen, who purchased an iPhone prototype that was apparently mislaid in a bar, published photographs of it on the Gawker-affiliated blog, and then returned it to Apple when the company asked for its property back. Here’s a thought experiment: Suppose you’re […]
Applebaum seems, like many journalists, to believe that the Tea Party protesters are pretty much like Perot voters.
FAIR’s latest Action Alert (4/23/10) concerns the Frontline program Obama’s Deal, which not only didn’t mention the single-payer proposal, but misrepresented single-payer advocates as proponents of a public option. You can leave copies of your messages to Frontline, or comments on the alert, in the comments thread of this post.
A New York Times article (4/23/10) by Peter Baker and David Herszenhorn remarks of Barack Obama: With his poll numbers sagging, the choreographed confrontation seemed aimed at tapping the nation’s antiestablishment mood as well as muscling financial regulation legislation through Congress. While Obama’s confrontation with the financial industry was no doubt choreographed, are his poll […]
Brian Williams introduced a report on NBC Nightly News (4/21/10) with this declaration: “Public schools from coast to coast in this country are looking at tens of thousands of layoffs, a lot of them teachers, because the money is not there.” Correspondent Ron Allen went on to report: In Springfield, Illinois, thousands of teachers turned […]
In a lengthy New Yorker piece (4/26/10) about the Amazon/Apple battle over e-books, Ken Auletta paints some familiar heroes and villains: The [publishing] industry’s great hope was that the iPad would bring electronic books to the masses—and help make them profitable. E-books are booming…. But publishers were concerned that lower prices would decimate their profits. […]
I find it very peculiar that the New York Times can publish an editorial observer piece about unheeded warnings–“Cassandra, the Ignored Prophet of Doom, Is a Woman for Our Times,” by Adam Cohen (4/19/10)–without once mentioning climate change. The piece cites various foretold disasters–Bernie Madoff, sexual abuse by priests, the financial meltdown, September 11, New […]
The New York Times had an odd correction today (4/16/10): A picture caption on Thursday with the continuation of a news analysis article about a shift in the Obama administratio’s Middle East policy referred incorrectly to Ramat Shlomo, the name of a Jewish housing development that Israel says it is expanding despite objections by the […]
Fox News host Glenn Beck (4/13/10) came out against Social Security yesterday: Have you ever wondered why we even have Social Security? It’s not an American idea. It’s first from Germany in the late 1800s. Hmmm, lets see, who else was prominent in Germany at that time…Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche. This is where the first […]
Front-page headline in the New York Times today (4/13/10): Civilians Killed as U.S. Troops Hit Afghan Bus The paper seems to have a real problem with writing a headline that informs readers in a straightforward way that the United States kills civilians.
While FAIR Blog complained earlier (3/30/10) that coverage of the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal was overlooking Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s involvement in the story before he became Pope Benedict XVI, yesterday two prominent op-eds focused on this history. Unfortunately, both op-eds present a highly selective version of Ratzinger’s role. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat […]
The evidence Newsweek presents to back up the heading of a recent Web article—”Priests Commit No More Abuse Than Other Males” (4/8/10)—is remarkably unpersuasive. Here’s the main argument offered by reporter Pat Wingert: The only hard data that has been made public by any denomination comes from John Jay College’s study of Catholic priests, which […]
