FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
WORKING THE REFS: Asked by the Washington Post (8/20) about Republican complaints about the media, Republican national chair Rich Bond helpfully explained: “There is some strategy to it. I’m the coach of kids’ basketball and Little League teams. If you watch any great coach, what they do is work the refs. Maybe the ref will […]
Coverage of the 1992 Democratic convention often drew sharp contrasts with earlier conventions–that were covered in almost exactly the same terms.
KEEPING POLITICIANS HONEST: After the 1988 election, journalists promised themselves that they would no longer, in the name of “objectivity,” allow candidates to get away with blatant falsehoods. Speeches and commercials were to be scrutinized for accuracy, with reporters serving as referees who would blow the whistle when politicians crossed the line between campaign rhetoric […]
MANAGED DEMOCRACY: One got the impression from the coverage of the Democratic Convention that democracy is something that many in the national press corps are uncomfortable with. CBS’s Richard Threlkeld (7/13) put it this way: “Americans are going to be watching to see how Bill Clinton manages this convention to see how he can manage […]
ANTI-DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION: It’s fashionable to bemoan the networks’ lack of gavel-to-gavel coverage of the conventions. Even Peter Jennings (Washington Post, 7/12) said it was “a little sad” that the networks were passing up “a chance to present the democratic process in the purest sense.” Of course, the modern stage-managed conventions are anything but a democratic […]
Joe Klein, long a writer for New York magazine, was recently hired by Newsweek as a senior editor, where he ponders American culture—like in his recent “Whose Values?” cover story (6/8/92), where he argued that Dan Quayle had a point about Murphy Brown. He has also become a TV regular on racial issues, where he’s […]
CLINTON’S HORTON: Bill Clinton’s remarks about Sister Souljah were part of a clear, if somewhat peculiar, political strategy: identify those voting blocs most likely to support you, and alienate them. (It’s an approach that’s especially odd in a three-way race, where 35 percent of the vote could provide victory.) This strategy was outlined in a […]
PEROT FOR REAL: News media seem to have realized that H. Ross Perot might, in fact, become president, and the prospect has prompted some good journalism. Associated Press (5/7) examined the cozy relationship between Perot and Nixon, as revealed in White House memos, such as the document indicating Perot offered to buy a TV network […]
SURVEY SAYS “HORSE RACE”: Is it possible for voters to cast an informed ballot based on the information they get from the mainstream media? To answer that question, FAIR surveyed more than 500 election articles from three national dailies–the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. The articles included every news […]
THE CANDIDATE THEY LOVE TO HATE: The big story this week remains what it was two weeks ago: the unprecedented anti-Jerry Brown slant coming from much of the media. (See Counterspin No. 4.) The question is not whether Brown’s record and proposals should be held up to strict scrutiny–like any other politician, Brown deserves tough […]
KISSED BY THE GODS: There’s more than a little truth to Garry Trudeau’s satirical portrayal in “Doonesbury” of a reporter who can’t keep himself from writing that Gov. Bill Clinton has been “kissed by the gods.” Strangely, the media’s admiration for Clinton is combined with a conviction that it has somehow done him wrong. A […]
BROWN OUT: Most of the press still feels a responsibility to steer the nomination toward candidates it considers acceptable. Time magazine’s much-hyped “Clinton vs. Tsongas” cover–out of date before its March 23 cover date–was yet another attempt to write Jerry Brown out of the race. If ignoring Brown doesn’t work, ridicule might: That same issue […]
GET ME REWRITE: In an early edition of the March 12 New York Times, an R.W. Apple article speculated about Pat Buchanan’s chances in Michigan: “He might also find support in Macomb County, north of Detroit, to which many white workers fled when their neighborhoods were taken over by blacks.” By the late edition, the […]
THE NEW MATH: Sometimes journalists have problems with arithmetic–like the New York Times reporter (2/28/92) who noted that Bob Kerry had 8 percent in a poll and Jerry Brown “ranked next with 9 percent.” More serious problems with arithmetic were apparent in the coverage of “Junior Tuesday.” On a day with six contests that produced […]
Though Panama has largely disappeared from the news in the months since the invasion, what coverage remains has not significantly improved in accuracy. Time’s March 5 “Grapevine” column reported: Under Manuel Antonio Noriega, bank-secrecy laws prevented American agents from tracing hundreds of millions of narcodollars that were laundered through Panamanian banks. Now the U.S.- installed […]
