FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Just what do lesbians have to do to get a photo on the front page of the Washington Post? When thousands of gay women roared past the White House the day before the big lesbian and gay civil rights march April 25, fire-eaters did their thing in front of the Clinton home. Some were bare-breasted, […]
It was the military and the media that made The Gay Agenda popular, says Bill Horn, once a CBS sportscaster, now video maker for the Springs of Life charismatic Christian church that produced the tape. “Since The Gay Agenda was featured on Larry King Live and ABC World News Tonight, calls have poured in on […]
Shortly before the start of the Super Bowl on NBC this January, viewers saw a public service announcement that warned: “Domestic violence is a crime.” For some, the PSA came as a surprise, but not for those involved in the campaign to get 30 seconds of airtime donated to the ad. The moment (worth roughly […]
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will disproportionately affect women, yet the voices of women workers have barely been heard in the mainstream media’s discussion of the pact. NAFTA’s most likely impact, according to the World Bank, will be on multinational corporations operating south of the U.S.-Mexico border and on those who work for […]
In her novel Damage, Josephine Hart wrote that the modern expression of guilt brings its own absolution: “Say the guilt prayer ‘I feel guilty,’ and hey presto, that’s the punishment.” So it was with President Bush’s nominee to head the CIA, Robert Gates, who appeared (and said the prayer) before the Senate Intelligence Committee this […]
The same hawish pundits who so successfully demonized Saddam Hussein are now looking for a new target. For most, the demon of choice is an old foe: Fidel Castro. Georgie Ann Geyer, an old cold warrior with a new biography out on Castro, gave the Today show (3/4/91) a description of Castro that seemed remarkably […]
Rape, and in particular acquaintance rape, has become something of a human interest story-of-choice for mainstream newspaper editors recently. But more coverage has usually not meant better. When five St. John’s University students were charged in the rape of a fellow student last spring, the New York Daily News went out of its way to […]
The media have been fascinated with the thousands of U.S. military women on active duty in the Persian Gulf. “Women Warriors,” a Newsweek cover called them (9/10/90), while People‘s cover story was “Mom Goes to War.” Women have long been used to whip up public enthusiasm for battle. What makes the Gulf crisis different is […]
The New York Times no longer prints the word “gay” only in quotation marks, but it still has a long way to go to represent gay and lesbian reality. On the issue of gay-bashing, Times coverage in recent months has shown a pattern of neglect and distortion. “A Gay Protest Against Attacks Becomes Violent” was […]
In October 1988, British Home Secretary Douglas Hurd announced a ban on broadcasting statements by members or apparent sympathizers of eleven political and paramilitary organizations (three of them legal). “This is not censorship,” Hurd announced. Affected journalists tried to adapt to the new conditions. Some news reports in Britain and Ireland now declare that stories […]
