FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Though Fast and Furious was basically born on network television, cable’s Fox News Channel took up the cause with vigor, often hyping the more conspiratorial angles. Near the beginning, right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin (6/22/11) told Sean Hannity that it might make sense to see the story through another popular right-wing lens: “You have government malfeasance […]
When it comes to ginning up scandals, the Obama administration has been a disappointment for the right-wing media, which had much more luck in the Clinton era. But they’ve found some red meat with “Fast and Furious”—thanks in large part to CBS Evening News, the story’s most prominent platform. Like most Clinton scandals (Extra!, 9–10/95, […]
You can count on U.S. corporate media to express alarm about the threat posed by left-wing governments in Latin America. Sometimes it’s military hype (think Soviet MiGs in Nicaragua), but more typically it takes the form of a generalized concern about certain governments’ commitment to democratic ideals. But how do you sound the alarm about […]
Writing in Newsweek, Peter Beinart has a pretty good idea: America’s foreign-policy debate desperately needs some measure of accountability. I’m not suggesting that politicians and pundits who got Iraq wrong be banished from public life. (This standard would leave me looking for other work.) But neither should they be able to flee the scene of […]
There are plenty of worthwhile things media could try to tell us about U.S. drone wars. But does the world need another uncritical piece about the difficult life of a drone pilot? Apparently someone at the New York Times thought so, and so readers get a story (7/30/12) headlined “A Day Job Waiting for a […]
Political reporters, for whatever reason, have always had a lot invested in John McCain. Reporters were enthralled by McCain the “maverick” 2000 presidential candidate, advancing the campaign’s theme that McCain was a different kind of Republican. There was never much to this act; McCain had a solidly conservative record before being lionized as a maverick. […]
Right after news of a suicide bombing attack in Bulgaria that killed five Israeli tourists, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu pointed the finger squarely at Iran. For media outlets that are supposed to evaluate claims based on evidence, this could have been a problem. But many outlets took these claims at face value–and in some cases […]
FAIR’s most recent Action Alert shows how CBS “severe weather” expert David Bernard is a climate change denier. Does this seem like the right kind of expertise to give viewers about the most important science story of our time? If you’re writing a letter to CBS, please feel free to paste in the comments section […]
A new survey from the Radio Television Digital News Association reveals that we’re getting more local TV news: For the fourth year in a row, the latest RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey found that the average television station set a new record for the amount of local news aired. Over those last four years, the average […]
On Sunday (7/15/12), Meet the Press host David Gregory caught Barack Obama in a big-time flip flop on taxes. At least, that’s what he seems to think. Gregory said: What the president would like to do is extend the Bush tax cuts for those making less than $200,000, or $250,000, as a family, and then […]
The criticism of Mitt Romney’s time at Bain Capital doesn’t appear to be leaving the headlines. And thus some political reporters are, as Jamison Foser notes, drawing an unusual comparison: Romney is being Swift Boated. The latest example comes from Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen (7/17/12): In a sense, Romney deserves the Swift Boating he’s […]
There are some pretty intense factchecking fights over what is true and not true about the Obama campaign’s claims about Romney’s record at Bain Capital. Media outlets are struggling with how to render a verdict; most seem to think Obama has exaggerated. But one outlet has found a voice willing to deliver a judgment. CNN […]
Paul Krugman writes today (New York Times, 7/16/12) on media’s failure to factcheck campaign claims: Perhaps in a better world we could count on the news media to sort through the conflicting claims. In this world, however, most voters get their news from short snippets on TV, which almost never contain substantive policy analysis. The […]
The New York Times has a long profile (7/13/12) of presumptive Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein. Though I could have done without some of it (“ever polished in bright scarves and slim pantsuits”), reporter Susan Saulny gives readers a good–and rare–look at a third party political candidate. Stein actually debated Mitt Romney in the […]
The “Fast & Furious” scandal has been a staple of right-wing media, where it is either evidence of a White House dodging accountability (a legitimate argument) or a plot to create chaos in order to pass more stringent gun laws (a bizarre and nonsensical conspiracy theory). But a recent Fortune investigation (6/27/12) showed that the […]
The New York Times has a piece today (7/10/12) that pairs Obama’s tax announcement with Republican attempts to kill Obamacare, presenting both as “politically charged proposals.” It’s hard to see how the two are at all similar, but the Times attempts to make the connection, noting that “lawmakers worry about alienating people who like expanded […]
You would think—or maybe hope—that journalists who have to appear alongside climate change deniers would find it a bit awkward. It used to be that media were faulted for creating false “balance” in coverage of climate change—quoting reality-based scientists in roughly equal measure with non-scientists who either don’t think there’s a problem or don’t think […]
This is the sort of awkward juxtaposition that newspapers usually try to avoid. In today’s Washington Post (7/9/12), a story about the Keystone pipeline appears above a Chevron ad: Awkward. Then again, maybe not. Juliet Eilperin‘s article is all about what supporters of the pipeline project in the state of Montana are saying. Politicians, […]
Much of the media analysis of Iran at the moment dwells on the punitive economic sanctions targeting Iran’s economy. An additional round of more restrictive sanctions took effect at the beginning of this month, drawing renewed attention from the press. The clear message from that media coverage is this: If Iran were to come clean […]
Independent media outlets have basically owned the ALEC story over the past few years. The American Legislative Exchange Council is a corporate-sponsored “bill mill” that works with state legislatures to pass the kinds of laws corporations want. Thanks to investigations in Mother Jones, the Nation, Extra! and continued attention from the likes of AlterNet and […]
