FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
A triumphant story about National Public Radio appeared in late March on the front page of Current, the main newspaper of the public-broadcasting industry. “NPR Lands Most Listeners Ever,” the headline announced, over a summary of the latest Arbitron figures: “NPR programs reached 19.5 million listeners a week last fall, and member stations drew a […]
In times of crisis, many policymakers and journalists pay special attention to the editorializing from America’s most influential papers. The spin of news coverage and the mix of individual opinion pieces usually indicate the outlooks of the media establishment, but the editorials by powerhouse newspapers convey more direct messages. With carnage a daily reality in […]
The Committee to Protect Journalists released a bleak report the other day. "Attacks on the Press in 2001" is a thick document with details about media suppression in much of the world. While American readers may feel very fortunate, they have no good reason to be smug. Last year, the report says, 37 journalists were […]
You’ve probably heard a lot of spooky tales about “the liberal media.” Ever since Vice President Spiro Agnew denounced news outlets that were offending the Nixon administration in the autumn of 1969, the specter has been much more often cited than sighted. “The liberal media” is largely an apparition — but the epithet serves as […]
In the aftermath of their high-profile failure to lure David Letterman, top executives at ABC are scrambling to repair the public-relations damage from the network’s proclaimed eagerness to throw "Nightline" overboard. But the nation’s TV viewers don’t need to read the current wave of commentaries about the debacle to know that feverish pursuit of unlimited […]
Cameras have recorded countless defining moments. And six months after Sept. 11, some nightmarish televised glimpses of that day’s horrors still resonate deeply. Visual images are powerful. Yet there’s no substitute for words that sum up what might otherwise seem too ambiguous, upsetting or baffling. Words attach meaning to events. Since last fall, the biggest […]
The Office of Strategic Influence went from obscurity to infamy to oblivion during a spin cycle that lasted just seven days in late February. Coming to terms with a week of negative coverage after news broke that the Pentagon office might purposely deceive foreign media, a somber defense secretary announced: "It is being closed down." […]
Thomas Friedman has achieved another media triumph with the debut of “Tom’s Journal” on the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” The feature will be a “one-on-one debriefing of Friedman by Lehrer or one of the program’s senior correspondents,” says a news release from the influential PBS program. Friedman will appear perhaps a dozen times per year […]
When a large company is getting clobbered by news stories and pundits, the damage-control response often includes packing full-page newspaper ads with solemn reassurances. That’s what the Arthur Andersen accounting firm has been doing lately to wash some of the mud off its name as the outfit that assisted with Enron’s phony bookkeeping. Andersen is […]
Like most people, American journalists are apt to look at the very rich with awe. Names like Bill Gates, George Soros and Warren Buffett have the ring of modern-day royalty — high above the rest of us, and maybe even vaguely immortal. The inclination to see wealth as a gauge of human worth goes back […]
A new media tic — likening George W. Bush to Franklin D. Roosevelt — is already so widespread that it’s apt to become a conditioned reflex of American journalism. By the time Bush gave his State of the Union speech, countless reporters and pundits had proclaimed GWB and FDR to be kindred inspirational leaders — […]
Even by Washington’s standards, the ability of John Ashcroft to reinvent himself has been a wonder to behold. Just a year ago, squeaking through Senate confirmation as attorney general, Ashcroft found himself shadowed by his own praise for leaders of the Confederacy. Now he’s able to tout himself as a disciple of Martin Luther King […]
I see that I’m damn near legendary now; and since I died long ago, that’s safe for all concerned. The other day, with calendars showing January 2002, a radio was having its usual effect — until suddenly my eyelids popped open. A young fella named Ken Burns was talking about me. I listened attentively in […]
The art of the deal is a media dream: Savvy achievers get to the top. Guile and artifice — even outright deception — may well be part of the game, but there’s nothing like success. One way or another, money and centralized power end up calling the tunes. Or so the media script often goes. […]
If my memory is correct, it was a Jerry Lewis movie. More than 40 years later, I still remember the scenes of a grown man so gullible that he believed his television. What a laugh riot! The guy dashed out to shop every time a commercial told him exactly what to buy. Then he’d sit […]
The last pages of a calendar remind us that life is fleeting. All we have at any moment is the present, filtered with memory. Meanwhile, music — capable of powerfully evoking what’s past but not quite gone — can be a catalyst for transcending what has been. "Music is a higher revelation than philosophy," Ludwig […]
The autumn started with a huge national jolt of shock, fear, grief and anger. Winter has begun with many worries here at home and grim satisfaction about warfare abroad. A line from "King Lear," early in Act 4, is hauntingly appropriate: "’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind." Shakespeare’s observation fits the current […]
The P.U.-litzer Prizes were established a decade ago to give recognition to the stinkiest media performances of the year. As each winter arrives, I confer with Jeff Cohen of the media watch group FAIR to sift through the large volume of entries. This year, the competition was especially fierce. We regret that only a few […]
“If liberty means anything at all,” George Orwell wrote, “it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” From all indications, the gatekeepers for big media in the United States don’t want to hear what Noam Chomsky has to say — and they’d prefer that we not hear him either. […]
And now, a news dispatch from the Media Twilight Zone… WASHINGTON — There were unconfirmed reports yesterday that the United States is not the center of the world. The White House had no immediate comment on the reports, which set off a firestorm of controversy in the nation’s capital. Speaking on background, a high-ranking official […]
