FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
A meeting of the minds between NBC host Chris Matthews and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius (Chris Matthews Show, 11/29/09): IGNATIUS: The long period of analysis, very deliberative, robs this of passion. This is–he was going to be a wartime president now, and he has to sell the country on the idea that our young […]
Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, doing press for his new TV show on “conspiracy theories,” made got some attention from (among others) Eric Roper at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Roper alludes toa “curious comment Ventura made in the Los Angeles Times this weekend”– that MSNBC canceled his short-lived show when they found out that he opposed […]
There have been recent discussions (e.g., New York Times, 9/29/09) about whether the press is doing a better job covering allegations about Iran’s nuclear program than they did during the run-up to the Iraq War. But in some crucial and very basic ways, many in the media are performing just as poorly as they did […]
Newsweek‘s editor apparently believes this is the way to make a “provocative” argument: I think we should be taking the possibility of a Dick Cheney bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 more seriously, for a run would be good for the Republicans and good for the country. (The sound you just heard in […]
Washington Post columnist David Broder rounds up some “non-partisan” budget experts– one of whom, oddly enough, was John McCain’s Social Security adviser during his 2000 campaign — to agree with him that the Democrats’ healthcare bills are too expensive. He closes with this: The challenge to Congress — and to Obama — remains the same: […]
The New York Times (11/21/09) describes Japan’s elite “press clubs” as a century-old, cartel-like arrangement in which reporters from major news media outlets are stationed inside government offices and enjoy close, constant access to officials. The system has long been criticized as antidemocratic by both foreign and Japanese analysts, who charge that it has produced […]
Sarah Palin’s highly anticipated visit to Fox News Channel‘s O’Reilly Factor saw the famously tough-as-nails host ask the tough questions of the right-wing leader: O’REILLY: OK. The latest poll has you with a 23 percent favorable, 37 percent don’t know. You do the math, OK. And you’re up at 60 percent of people who could […]
A headline in today’s Los Angeles Times (11/20/09): “Democrats Risk Taxing the Wealthy for Healthcare.” The paper explains: Embracing the progressive–and sometimes politically risky–principle that the cost of carrying out public policies should fall to the well-off more than the disadvantaged, both the House and Senate bills would place new taxes on the wealthy to […]
The Washington Post reports its latest polling on the Afghanistan war, and once again have managed to put together a baffling question that seems intended to muddy up the debate over a troop surge. The lead and headline (“Poll Finds Guarded Optimism on Obama’s Afghanistan Plan”) stress the idea that the public still seems to […]
The big news out of the Middle East yesterday was the Israeli government’s decision to approve an expansion of the Gilo settlement near Jerusalem. The White House’s muddled position on settlement expansion has been a key part of Israel-Palestine negotiations. Many headlines framed the news as you’d expect (New York Times: “Plan to Expand Jerusalem […]
New York Times on the pending trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed ( 11/15/09–emphasis added): Mr. Mohammed’s initial defiance toward his captors set off an interrogation plan that would turn him into the central figure in the roiling debate over the C.I.A’s interrogation methods. He was subjected 183 times to the near-drowning technique called waterboarding, treatment […]
Newsweek‘s Evan Thomas (11/14/09) on Washington gridlock and partisanship: Diehard right-wing congressmen do not deserve all the blame. Obama tried to foster bipartisanship at the outset of his administration, but he didn’t try very hard, and his fellow Democrats can be just as rigidly partisan on the left. Obama seems reduced to fencing with Fox […]
From ABC World News, 11/11/09: CHARLIE GIBSON: We understand he’s raising new questions about a number of plans that are in front of him. What new questions are there to be asked after all this time? MARTHA RADDATZ: Well, you would think he’d be through with the questions, Charlie. Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times (11/15/09): […]
CNN‘s Lou Dobbs (11/9/09) on the Fort Hood shootings: I think we should point out, too, for the first time in my memory in eight years, we have seen quickly CAIR step up on the day of the shootings, the largest representative of the Islamic faith step up, and condemn the shootings instantly. CAIR is […]
The headline and lead of a New York Times piece today: Trick for Democrats Is Juggling Ideology and Pragmatism By ADAM NAGOURNEY and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN WASHINGTON — Democrats have displayed a striking degree of pragmatism in seeking to push the health care bill through Congress, embracing or rejecting ideological considerations as needed to keep […]
In his New York Times column, David Brooks cheers the rise of suburban independent voters in this week’s midterms elections, crediting them with Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia. Brooks has made a career out of singing the praises of suburban Americans, all the while suggesting that they are somewhat ignored. While liberals and […]
Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, commenting on a tax increase in California: That could happen on the federal level. Already Nancy Pelosi and her far-left crew want to raise the top federal tax rate to 45 percent. That’s not capitalism. That’s Fidel Castro stuff, confiscating wages that people honestly earn. Setting aside the truth of […]
O’Reilly interviewing John Stossel, who left ABC for Fox Business Network (11/3/09): O’REILLY: You committed the cardinal sin of all time. You left a liberal network, and you went to a traditional right-leaning network. So you’re never, ever going to be liked again by anyone. Does that make you sad? STOSSEL: Well, I live with […]
In this week’s cover story, Newsweek‘s Sharon Begley seems to think Al Gore’s new book is good–but he’s still too wonky: To anyone with bad memories of how Gore’s fact-filled debate performances against George W. Bush in 2000 failed to connect with voters, it may come as no surprise that Our Choice has a graphic […]
On November 1, New York Times reporter Alissa Rubin has a look back at her experience as a war correspondent in Iraq. It’s mostly interesting, though when she gets to the part where she draws the big lessons, things turn for the worse: In my five years in Iraq, all that I wanted to believe […]
