FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
Amy Gardner’srecent reporting on the Tea Party in the Washington Post has been very insightful. Today’s piece (10/27/10) deals with the activists’ views of the media.There’s astandard right-wing whine about mainstream media neglect, but actual Tea Party activists see things differently: Most local tea party organizers interviewed in an extensive canvass this month by the […]
On today’s front page, under the headline “Deficit Divisions Likely to Grow After Election,” New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes writes this lead: WASHINGTON — A midterm campaign that has turned heavily on the issue of the mounting federal debt is likely to yield a government even more split over what to do about it, […]
After being fired by NPR, Juan Williams made an appearance with Fox host Bill O’Reilly (10/21/10) where he explained that he wasn’t likely to get support from prominent African-American leaders like Al Sharpton because “I’m not a predictable black liberal.” It’s not totally clear what he means by that, but Williams does a pretty good […]
On the October 22 broadcast of ABC World News With Diane Sawyer,the anchor weighed in on the WikiLeaks Iraq War documents by noting, “Arab television is already trumpeting the revelations.” Not exactly a promising start, but the correspondent Martha Raddatz did a pretty good job of conveying the findings: hundreds of Iraqi civilians killed at […]
I was struck by this New York Times headline on Saturday (10/23/10):”Effort to Rehabilitate Suharto’s Reputation Grows in Indonesia.” (The headline seems to have been changed somewhere along the way.) The piece led with this: JAKARTA, Indonesia— To millions, Suharto, the military strongman who ruled Indonesia for 32 years, was a tyrant, a thief and […]
One strand of conventional wisdom among elite D.C. reporters is that losing the midterm elections would be a good thing for the White House. Hence New York Times reporter Peter Baker (10/24/10): WASHINGTON — Let there be no mistake: President Obama wants the Democrats to win next week’s midterm elections. His voice has gone hoarse […]
I clicked on the Washington Post website on Sunday and saw this: We Overreact to Prejudice Instead of Airing It Out By Kathleen Parker Only someone who’s pondered Barack Obama’s “fullbloodedness” and Elena Kagan’s distance from “mainstream” America (hint: She’s Jewish, and from New York!) can do this. Parker also wrote a memorable column about […]
The L.A. Times has an interesting piece (10/22/10) about KCET, the local PBS affiliate that is bolting from PBS because it says it can’t afford to pay the fees PBS wants to charge them. What happened is that KCET, for a little while at least, was very good at raising corporate money; the PBS fee […]
There are plenty of opinions flying around about NPR‘s decision to fireJuan Williams. The Washington Post editorialized against NPR‘s decision, arguing in part that Williams “undoubtedly spoke for many Americans who are wrestling with similar feelings” about seeing Muslims in airports. (Williams was worried primarily about those in “Muslim garb.”) Former Washington Post media critic […]
Rep. Paul Ryan is the Republican leader most often touted as a seriouspolicy wonk.His plan to “fix” Social Security was recently evaluated by the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration. As the Washington Post notes inan article today (10/21/10), Ryan’s plan”would slice initial benefits by about a quarter for middle-income Americans who turn 65 […]
Brian Stelter has a piece today in the New York Times (10/20/10) explaining the latest in the fight between Cablevision and NewsCorp. NewsCorp wants the cable company to pay them more money—a lot more—for airing Fox‘s broadcast signal (and a few, smaller cable channels). The two sides couldn’t reach a deal, and as of Saturday, […]
In the coverage of French retirement protests, you often hear U.S.reporters state the debate is over raising the retirement age from 60 to 62. As Dean Baker has pointed out (as did Amitabh Pal from the Progressive, when he appeared on CounterSpin) this is incorrect; the retirement age for most French workers is 65; they […]
Newsweek‘s Eleanor Clift has a new piece headlined”Math Lessons: How Did a Concept as Unsexy and Complicated as the National Deficit Become the Galvanizing Political Issue of the Day?” Sheasks: “Why is the deficit the top issue in voters’ minds?” If she eliminated the word “why,” you’d be left with agood question to ponder. The […]
I was struck by Sen. Sherrod Brown’s op-ed in the New York Times today (10/18/10): For Our China Trade Emergency, Dial Section 301 By SHERROD BROWN Washington TEN years ago this fall the Senate sold out American manufacturing. By a vote of 83 to 15, it established so-called permanent normal trade relations with China, paving […]
Readers of Saturday’s New York Times may have noticed thisthis piece (10/16/10): Despite Image, Union Leader Backs School Change By TRIP GABRIEL In “Waiting for Superman,” the new education documentary, the union leader Randi Weingarten is portrayed, in the words of Variety, as “a foaming satanic beast.” At a two-day education summit hosted by NBC […]
Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein wrote a piece yesterday (10/13/10) headlined “Wage Cuts Hurt, but They May Be the Only Way to Get Americans Back to Work.” The point–in case you didn’t catch the drift ofthe headline–is that workers are going to need to take pay cuts in order to get the U.S. economy back […]
Sunday’s Washington Post (10/10/10) featured a story by Jon Cohen and Dan Balz that led with this claim: If there is an overarching theme of election 2010, it is the question of how big the government should be and how far it should reach into people’s lives. The piece is actually an explanation of the […]
In his Washington Post column yesterday (10/10/10), George Will offered the kind of analysis one has come to expect from George Will: Today, Barack Obama, a chronic campaigner, is out and about trying to arouse the masses against the inequity of not raising taxes on “the rich.” He opposes extending the Bush tax rates–they are […]
Thispast Sunday’s edition of NBC‘sMeet the Press (10/10/10) featuredtwo gueststalking about the midterms, the economy and public sentiment: conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan and Time magazine’s Joe Klein. Klein has been on a road trip through the middle of the country to assess how Americans are feeling (that is, Americans who don’t live […]
