FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
On the magazine cover, the big headline next to Oprah’s shoulder is as warm and cuddly as the pair of cocker spaniels in her lap. “WE ARE FAMILY,” it says. “Now more than ever: the power and pleasure of feeling connected.” Inside this new issue of O — “The Oprah Magazine” — the editorial director’s […]
For most people in the United States, the picture of events since Sept. 11 has been largely framed by television. When pollsters with Princeton Survey Research asked “Where have you gotten most of your news about the attacks?” more than a week later, a whopping 87 percent of adults gave TV as the answer. While […]
After billionaire Michael Bloomberg won the race to become New York’s next mayor, the French news agency AFP noted that he “was among the first to see how the information age could serve investors in unprecedented — and lucrative — ways.” In recent months, Bloomberg’s campaign spent at least $50 million from his vast personal […]
The World Series provided a heck of a photo-op for George W. Bush when he threw out the first pitch one night, aiming at a large TV audience. For the most part, the game that followed was a pleasure to watch — midway through a week that combined what’s best and worst about major league […]
For some people, war is terror, disaster and death. For others, it’s a PR problem. At the Rendon Group, a public-relations firm with offices in Boston and Washington, pleasant news arrived the other day with a $397,000 contract to help the Pentagon look good while bombing Afghanistan. The four-month deal includes an option to renew […]
President Bush’s upward spike of popularity owes a lot to his presence on television — a medium that has not always been so kind. At times, under pressure, he has earned many comparisons to a deer in headlights. But after a wobbly performance on Sept. 11, Bush got into a groove of seizing the TV […]
The Pentagon’s air drops of food parcels and President Bush’s plea for American children to aid Afghan kids with dollar bills will go down in history as two of the most cynical maneuvers of media manipulation in the early 21st century. Many U.S. news outlets have been eager to play along. A New York Times […]
When the bombing of Afghanistan resumed Monday night [Oct. 8], retired generals showed no fatigue at their posts under hot lights at network studios. On CNN, former NATO supreme commander Wesley Clark teamed up with Maj. Gen. Don Shepperd to explain military strategies; they were sharing their insights as employees of AOL Time Warner. Far […]
During the first two days of this month, CNN’s website displayed an odd little announcement. “There have been false reports that CNN has not used the word ‘terrorist’ to refer to those who attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon,” the notice said. “In fact, CNN has consistently and repeatedly referred to the attackers and […]
Many news analysts and pundits lost no time conveying—sometimes with great enthusiasm—their eagerness to see the United States use its military might in anger.
Back in 1988, the father of our current president was bedeviled by what media outlets called “the wimp factor.” After eight years as vice president, George Bush was making a run for the Oval Office. But quite a few journalists kept asking whether he was a tough enough man for the job. Newsweek even headlined […]
The Bush administration has vowed that it will not aim the Pentagon’s firepower at civilian targets in Afghanistan. Such assurances are supposed to make us think that innocent bystanders will be spared when the missiles fly and the warheads explode. Don’t believe it. Back in early August 1945, President Truman had this to say: "The […]
In Time magazine’s special issue about the events of Sept. 11, chilling photos evoke the horrific slaughter in Manhattan. All of the pages are deadly serious. And on the last page, under the headline "The Case for Rage and Retribution," an essay by Time regular Lance Morrow declares: "A day cannot live in infamy without […]
We stare at TV screens and try to comprehend the suffering in the aftermath of terrorism. Much of what we see is ghastly and all too real; terrible anguish and sorrow. At the same time, we’re witnessing an onslaught of media deception. “The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but […]
In this era of conglomerate mergers and bottom-line obsessions, it’s easy to believe that the media industry requires yielding to expediency. Like most people, media employees want job security. Few are inclined to risk their livelihoods and careers for matters of principle. For more than two years now, a real-life media drama involving the noncommercial […]
In a recent obituary about a former state prison official, the New York Times made a passing reference to "the bloody Attica uprising in 1971, which left 43 people dead." That’s the kind of newspeak that presents itself as journalism while detouring around truth. Thirty years ago, on Sept. 13, in upstate New York, a […]
The vast Internet is many things to many people. Accustomed to their own routes through cyberspace, individuals may assume that what they see is fairly typical. But in society as a whole, what are the Web’s dominant traffic patterns? While some view it as an expansive bastion of decentralized communication and democratic discourse, the Internet […]
A few decades ago, Marshall McLuhan observed that "all media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values." But for today’s model consumer, such comments are apt to be unhelpful. Distinctions between news, entertainment, advertising and propaganda have blurred to the vanishing point. Yet mental acuity can only lead to endless conflicts […]
News of Bill Clinton’s lucrative book deal has created quite a buzz. There’s no telling how the former president’s memoirs will turn out. But before revisions delete any excess candor, the first draft of a chapter about media coverage of his presidency might include a passage like this: From the outset, I wanted to prove […]
Two years from now, the national committee of the Green Party will make a big decision: Should the party run a candidate for president in 2004? To hear many Green leaders tell it, the choice is a no-brainer. In a recent news release, Mike Feinstein, a party member who’s the mayor of Santa Monica, Calif., […]
