FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
With the February 1 ABC News special, Boys and Girls Are Different: Men, Women and the Sex Difference, reported by correspondent John Stossel, hormonally induced haircut prices joined gay brains and race-based IQ as the politically charged science of the media moment. The show asked the eternal question, “Are men and women supposed to be […]
From Rush Limbaugh to G. Gordon Liddy, commercial radio has long been a megaphone for right-wing talk-show hosts. And even NPR mostly mirrors mainstream news (Extra!, 4-5/93). But now some left/populist static for Limbaugh and his ilk is as close as your AM dial. We the People with Jerry Brown airs the renegade former California […]
There’s good news and bad news, America. The good news is that toxics in the environment are much less dangerous than once thought; the bad news is the government’s exorbitant over-regulation of chemicals. The solution? Wait patiently for more definitive data and then apply strict cost/benefit analysis. That’s the growing consensus among a new “third […]
Another Year of the “environmental decade” is upon us: Acid rain and ozone depletion are household words; nature calendars, dolphin-safe tuna and neighborhood recycling programs are a part of everyday life; and the “environmental president” is running for reelection. Surely, since Time magazine named the Earth “Planet of the Year” in 1989, the environment has […]
The environment and the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe were two of last year’s hottest stories. And the two issues came together in the aggressive, graphic reporting on the severe pollution behind the “Iron Curtain.” There was no dearth of coverage: In the ten major publications studied by Extra!, there were 37 stories on […]
In September 1987, when Amnesty International issued its annual (1986) report on human rights abuses in 129 nations, it received scant and oversimplified coverage reflecting the anti-Sovietism of the day. Amnesty’s world-spanning report was typically cast in a superpower framework, as US journalists focused on human rights violations in the USSR or in countries out […]
