FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
If you’re a politics buff, you probably remember the way National Journal‘s ratings were used in the 2004 and 2008 elections to establish that the Democratic candidate was the “most liberal voting record in the Senate”–first John Kerry (Extra! Update, 6/04), then Barack Obama (CounterSpin, 3/28/08). FAIR pointed out the flawed methodology that the magazine […]
The New York Times features an op-ed today (3/5/10) by Gen. Merrill McPeak, a retired Air Force chief of staff, arguing against allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the U.S. military. It’s not much of an argument, really–there’s not much more to it than the assertion that “warriors are inspired by male […]
In a column headlined “A Word From the Wise” (3/3/10), New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman lets us know what Intel CEO Paul Otellini thinks is wrong with the U.S. economy. And there’s a certain theme that runs through his critique: “The things that are not conducive to investments here are [corporate] taxes and capital […]
There’s a certain category of newspaper article where you’re better off ignoring the text and just looking at the accompanying graph. Such an article is “Math of Publishing Meets the E-Book” (New York Times, 3/1/10), by Motoko Rich. The context for the article is the fight between publishers and Amazon over how much to charge […]
Bill McKibben (TheNation.com, 2/25/10) has a good analogy that explains the success of global warming deniers: The campaign against climate science has been enormously clever, and enormously effective. It’s worth trying to understand how they’ve done it. The best analogy, I think, is to the O.J. Simpson trial…. The Dream Team of lawyers assembled for […]
Mac Margolis, Newsweek‘s right-wing Latin America correspondent (Extra!, 1/10), has a small piece in the latest issue (3/1/10) that misleads in a big way. Under the headline “A Killer Deal for Russia,” Margolis declares: Russia’s campaign to balance U.S. power and prestige around the globe has found a new and willing partner–Latin America–and Washington may […]
Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald has had a couple of posts (2/18/10, 2/22/10) on a New York Times op-ed (2/18/10) that urged the U.S. to not worry so much about killing civilians in Afghanistan. The piece was written by Lara M. Dadkhah, who is vaguely identified as an “intelligence analyst” and who notes that she is “employed […]
New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt (2/21/10) returns to the issue of Times Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner having a child fighting on one side of the conflict he’s covering (FAIR Activism Update, 2/12/10): Some Times journalists have taken issue with my position in this case, believing it suggests that no Jewish reporter could […]
Think Progress‘s Matthew Yglesias (2/22/10) points to a rather bizarre Economist editorial (2/18/10) blaming President Barack Obama’s problems on his failure to move to the right: It is not so much that America is ungovernable, as that Mr. Obama has done a lousy job of winning over Republicans and independents to the causes he favors. […]
James Ledbetter (Big Money, 2/20/10) points out that Mexican media mogul Carlos Slim, the third-richest person on the planet and one of the New York Times‘ biggest stockholders, is a central player in a remarkable New York-based legal story–one that the Times has so far ignored. The story involves Slim’s attempt to take over a […]
The New York Post (2/19/10) has an interesting front page on the anti-government protester flying his plane into an office building. After the bad pun (“KAMIKAZE ATTAX!”), the subhead reads: Fed-Up Madman Crashes Plane Into IRS Building “Madman”–because unlike, say, Nidal Malik Hasan, Joseph Stack is not a “terrorist” whose actions might discredit a wider […]
The Financial Times‘ Edward Luce (2/3/10) had a report last week that blamed some of the Obama administration’s problems on the president’s overreliance on four top advisers—particularly chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who “in addition to hurling frequent profanities at people within the administration…has alienated many of Mr Obama’s closest outside supporters.” More illuminating than […]
FAIR put out an Action Alert today (2/9/10) on a USA Today report that presented dubious, one-sided claims about Social Security’s supposed crisis. Feel free to post your messages to the paper, or share your ideas about the alert, in the comments thread here.
Blogger Matthew Yglesias (2/9/10), responding to a Des Moines Register poll that found “a third of Iowans from across the political spectrum say they support the ‘tea party’ movement, sounding a loud chorus of dissatisfaction with government”: Thirty-eight percent of Americans have a favorable view of Cuba and 36 percent are favorably disposed toward socialism, […]
The Washington Post‘s Eli Saslow (2/3/10) on Obama: He is a rare president who comes from the middle class, yet people still perceive him as disconnected from it. It’s true that very few presidents come from the middle class—except for Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Dwight Eisenhower, […]
Curtis Brainard of CJR‘s Observatory blog (1/29/10) complains about the lack of coverage of what he calls “Glaciergate”: Almost two weeks ago, the Sunday Times, a British newspaper, “broke” the story that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had made significant errors in its 2007 report on the impacts of global warming…. The report stated […]
FAIR has long complained (Extra!, 7-8/95; Extra Update!, 12/98) about corporate media’s avoidance of the word “terrorism” to describe the murder of doctors who perform abortions, even though it meets the standard definition: the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve a political purpose. But the term is still glaringly absent from the corporate media […]
FAIR has a new Action Alert (1/29/10) about All Things Considered‘s obituary of historian Howard Zinn, which “balances” the praise of Noam Chomsky and Julian Bond with a substance-free attack by far-right activist David Horowitz. If you communicate with the NPR ombud (which requires using a Web form), feel free to copy your message and […]
David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist who speaks for the little guy who eats at the Applebee’s salad bar, has figured out (1/29/10) what Barack Obama ought to do: Force the country to accept common sacrifice. This is the issue that unlocks everything else…. Establish your credibility and offer to raise taxes on […]
AP‘s story (1/28/10) on Ben Bernanke’s reconfirmation as chair of the Federal Reserve states plainly what is more usually the unstated assumption in corporate media coverage of the Fed: The battle over Bernanke’s confirmation has been a test of central bank independence, a crucial element if the Fed is to carry out unpopular but economically […]
