FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Responding to a “stupid” critique of his May 1 column defending the use of terror in “ticking timebomb” scenarios, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer (5/15/09) asserts that there has too been a real-life example of such a situation: On October 9, 1994, Israeli Cpl. Nachshon Waxman was kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists. The Israelis captured the […]
The Washington Post editorial (5/14/09) on the Social Security and Medicare trustees’ report didn’t break much new ground, other than perhaps a uptick in the sarcasm quotient. (“Oh, please,” is their retort to critics who point out the paper’s demonstrable hostility to the Social Security program.) But this line jumped out at me as noteworthy: […]
Political Animal‘s Steve Benen (5/12/09) notes a recent Rush Limbaugh broadcast (5/11/09) that makes the racist subtext of the right’s critique of Barack Obama virtually explicit: The [economic] deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps. But in the Oval Office of the White House none of […]
FAIR has a new Action Alert on 60 Minutes‘ May 10 broadcast extolling the virtues of unmanned drones, with no perspectives at all from critics of the weapons–who might have pointed out that they kill 50 innocent civilians for every Al-Qaeda leader they assassinate. Please copy your letters to 60 Minutes to the comments thread […]
In a column attacking Google and other “accused newspaper industry killers,” the Washington Post‘s Dana Milbank (5/7/09) doesn’t present much of an argument for why newspapers are dying—but he provides an excellent example of why journalism like his deserves to die. [Marissa] Mayer, who oversees Google News, explained how “Google is doing its part” to […]
Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz (5/3/09) seemed startled when the New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza argued that “just because Bush or some previous president didn’t garner as much coverage as Michelle and Barack Obama did doesn’t tell you anything about press bias one way or another.” “Are you kidding?” Kurtz exclaimed. He didn’t express any similar […]
Associated Press reporter Calvin Woodward has a history of straining to catch Barack Obama in factual errors. But today’s review of last night’s Obama press conference may have hit a new low in absurdity. In the piece, headlined “Fact Check: Obama Disowns Deficit He Helped Shape,” Woodward takes issue with Obama’s statement: “Number one, we […]
USA Today had a remarkable headline (4/29/09) on a story about Pennsylvania’s Sen. Arlen Specter switching from the Republican to the Democratic Party: Leaving GOP, Specter Gives Dems a Boost in Stifling Dissent The headline writer does not seem to understand the meaning of the word “dissent,” which is the expression of opposition to reigning […]
A couple of recent FAIR Blog posts have dealt with apologists for torture: Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen and former CIA interrogator John Kiriakou, who misled ABC News about the effectiveness of waterboarding. What’s striking is how they both offer the same insight into why torture is attractive—it met their post–September 11 psychological needs. Kiriakou […]
We’re not in the habit of linking to Accuracy In Media–and here’s an Extra! article that explains why–but I thought this piece, by the apparent though unacknowledged daughter of USA Today founder Al Neuharth, deserved an exception. Writing in response to a USA Today column by Neuharth (3/20/09) celebrating his six adopted children, Rosamunda Neuharth-Ozgo […]
Right-wing historians are back again with more claims that the renowned progressive journalist I.F. Stone was a KGB operative. Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes and Alexander Vassiliev have an article on Commentary‘s website headlined “I.F. Stone, Soviet Agent—Case Closed.” “Until now,” they write, “the evidence was equivocal and subject to different interpretations. No longer.” So […]
With all the fuss about tea parties today, it’s worth noting again that the original Boston tea party was not, as is often claimed, a protest against the British imposing a tax on tea. What the colonists were actually objecting to was the British lowering the tax on tea in order to favor the East […]
Maureen Dowd today (New York Times, 4/15/09) writes about the newspaper industry’s complaints about Google: Robert Thomson, the top editor of the Wall Street Journal, denounced websites like Google as “tapeworms.” His boss, Rupert Murdoch, said that big newspapers do not have to let Google “steal our copyrights.” The AP has threatened to take legal […]
Washington Post reporter Paul Kane proffered what blogger Matthew Yglesias aptly called a “full-throated defense of journalism-as-stenography.” Kane had been criticized by Media Matters that he had quoted Sen. Olympia Snowe (R.-Maine) as saying that Barack Obama’s use of the filibuster-avoiding budget reconciliation tool would make it “infinitely more difficult to bridge the partisan divide” […]
A recent Frontline documentary (3/31/09) presented mandatory for-profit healthcare as the only alternative to the current U.S. healthcare system, suggesting that this was the system all other developed nations use–even though the documentary was a sequel to an earlier Frontline report (4/15/08) that examined a wide range of international options, including Taiwan’s single-payer model. If […]
In a column on media treatment of Michelle Obama, Katha Pollitt (Nation, 4/20/09) points out this forehead-smacking quote from New York magazine’s David Samuels (3/15/09): There are clear limits to Michelle’s ambition. She went to excellent schools, got decent grades, stayed away from too much intellectual heavy lifting, and held a series of practical, modestly […]
Jim Cramer, CNBC: “I think Goldman is a great firm…. The good guys are in charge. [Lloyd] Blankfein is a fabulous guy. Do people want him in jail? Does Paul Krugman want him in jail? Where do they want these guys?” Mike Barnicle, Boston Herald: “Paul Krugman wants anyone who makes over $75,000 a year […]
ABC World News did a segment on March 31 with a bunch of short reports on how the global recession was hitting around the world. Most of them were like this: CLARISSA WARD (ABC NEWS): I’m Clarissa Ward in Tokyo. Japan is the second-largest economy in the world. And lifetime employment has always been the […]
Do you remember when Fox News Channel thought comparisons between the U.S. government and Nazi Germany were insane and reprehensible? This was the channel’s reaction when a couple of entries to a video contest sponsored by the progressive activist group MoveOn used Hitler analogies to criticize George W. Bush (FAIR Action Alert, 1/16/04): News Corp‘s […]
The Rasmussen poll has been criticized for putting a right-wing skew on its questions–a strategy that helps Scott Rasmussen garner frequent appearances on Fox News and the like, but severely diminishes its usefulness as a guide to public opinion. The latest example of Rasmussen’s tilt is particularly tendentious: “How important is it to you that […]
